Principal Investigator Mark Drela
Project Website https://aeroastro.mit.edu/wbwt-homepage/
Since 1938, MIT's Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel has played a major role in the development of aerospace, civil engineering and architectural systems. In recent years, faculty research interests generated long-range studies of unsteady airfoil flow fields, jet engine inlet-vortex behavior, aeroelastic tests of unducted propeller fans, and panel methods for tunnel wall interaction effects. Industrial testing has included helicopter antenna pods, and in-flight trailing cables, stationary and vehicle mounted ground antenna configurations, the aeroelastic dynamics of airport control tower configurations, Olympic ski gear, space suits, racing bicycles, subway station entrances, and Olympic rowing shells, and power-generating wind turbines.
The Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a subsonic, closed-circuit, closed return, atmospheric wind tunnel currently classified as having the largest test section of any wind tunnel in academia. Since its dedication in 1938, the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel has become a campus landmark used for education, research, industry, and outreach.
In 2017, the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) announced it would replace the tunnel with a brand-new facility thanks to a lead funding commitment from Boeing. In addition to support from Boeing, the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel replacement and Building 17 renovation were made possible thanks to gifts from Becky Samberg and the late Arthur “Art” Samberg ’62 and MathWorks for the MIT Wind Tunnel Instrumentation Platform Project, which is helping MIT build and operate a state-of-the-art modern data test driver and data acquisition system.