A Low-Cost Particle Sensor Grid for Aerosol Wind Tunnel Studies

BOBBY GUILFOIL, Suresh Dhaniyala, Clarkson University

     Abstract Number: 542
     Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods

Abstract
Aerosol wind-tunnel studies are critical for evaluation of the performance of aerosol inlets and instruments. Such evaluation studies require the establishment of uniform aerosol concentration in the tunnel cross-section, to ensure that the concentration of the test instrument is independent of its exact location in the tunnel. Obtaining uniform concentration in a large wind-tunnel, such as Clarkson’s aerosol wind-tunnel that has a 4 foot by 3 foot cross-section, is non-trivial. To effectively develop new strategies to obtain uniform seeding in the tunnel, new evaluation techniques that can map the real-time spatio-temporal variation in the tunnel are required. In this study, we evaluate the use of a low-cost sensor network for real-time wind-tunnel aerosol mapping. Using LoRa mesh-networked sensors distributed in a grid, we wirelessly mapped the aerosol uniformity in the tunnel for a range of aerosol injection approaches. We will present the design of the sensor grid and the final wind-tunnel injection approach that resulted in a uniform aerosol distribution in the tunnel.