2.22_Manolesos: Aerodynamic and Aeroelastic Experiments at the new Swansea University Wind Tunnel

Swansea University has undergone a very significant period of transformative growth and development over the past five years, which has included raising its research profile and expanding to a brand-new campus in 2015. The college of engineering, which is 10th in the UK for research quality, is housed at the newly built Bay Campus, a £450 million development project of the University. Part of this investment is the new, purpose-built low-speed wind tunnel. The facility was commissioned in 2016 and belongs to the pioneering Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering. The wind tunnel has a cross section of 1.5 m x 1.0 m and can reach wind speeds of 50 m/s.

The focus of research is flow control and aeroelasticity for the Wind and Aerospace industries. Examples of ongoing research include morphing wingtips based on compliant structures [1]; Fish Bone Active Camber Morphing Concept (FishBAC) [2]; Nonlinear Control for Flutter Suppression in Nonlinear Systems [3]; Flow control for drag reduction [4] and flow separation [5]. Current industrial collaborators in Research projects include Vestas and Airbus. This presentation will discuss the latest developments in wind energy and aerospace research at Swansea University.