Wind tunnel benchmark tests of airfoils

Abstract This paper describes a benchmark of four airfoils in the Poul la Cour Tunnel (PLCT). The wind tunnel, the corrections used and the method of making adapters for the airfoils are also described. Very good agreement was in general observed between the measurements in PLCT and in other high quality wind tunnels. Some deviations were seen, but they were mainly attributed to the differences in separation on the airfoil. Apart from the benchmarking, this paper also highlights the challenges in testing airfoils in general such as obtaining 2D flow on thick airfoils that inherently shows separated flow and how to make adapters for airfoils tested in other wind tunnels.