{"id":43173,"date":"2019-09-16T11:09:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T15:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=43173"},"modified":"2019-11-04T15:05:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T20:05:11","slug":"for-his-engineering-capstone-project-this-senior-built-a-wind-tunnel-for-emu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2019\/for-his-engineering-capstone-project-this-senior-built-a-wind-tunnel-for-emu\/","title":{"rendered":"For his engineering capstone project, this senior built a wind tunnel for EMU"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Inspired by a visit to a NASA research facility three years ago, Eastern Mennonite University engineering<\/a> student Dylan Grove \u201919<\/strong> dedicated his senior engineering capstone project to building a wind tunnel for his alma mater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grove, who is from Dickerson, Maryland, began research for\nthe tunnel last August, and designed and constructed it this spring and summer.\nThe 14 feet-long structure includes a series of component systems \u2013 intake\nmanifold, test chamber, diffuser, blower \u2013 that are precisely designed and\nmounted on a black metal frame to create 100 mile-per-hour winds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The EMU engineering department will use the tunnel in its fluid\nmechanics class to model air flow and study lift, drag and other forces on\nmodels such as an airplane with an eight-inch wingspan.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s roots go back to 2016, when then-sophomore Grove and classmates in EMU\u2019s newly christened engineering program saw large-scale wind tunnels during a visit to NASA\u2019s Langley Research Center<\/a> in Hampton, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EMU, Grove learned, was planning to buy a wind tunnel for\nits own use. \u201cWhy?\u201d he recalls asking. \u201cWe can probably just build one. That\nsounds like a great senior project.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Engineering professor Esther Tian<\/a><\/strong>, in a subsequent WMRA report<\/a> broadcast on the Shenandoah Valley\u2019s NPR station, commented that the visit had inspired students to brainstorm about this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In pursuing that goal, Grove was supported by Venture\nProducts in Orrville, Ohio, where as an engineering intern last summer<\/a> he\nlearned a lot that he put to hands-on use in this project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company donated sheet metal, some of which they cut and bent for creating the intake. Grove was proud and appreciative of the finished product, which he designed and made with help from Venture Product\u2019s Roscoe Lehman: a complex work of engineering art whose \u201cvariable radius curve\u201d required that they \u201cbuild the fabrication process into the design,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n