“CAVE OF THE WINDS.”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 79, 13 January 1928, Page 7

“CAVE OF THE WINDS.”

vagaries of the air. TYPHOONS MADE TO ORDER. Much information of use to aviators, automobile designers, ordnance makers, builders and aruiitects is being yielded from experiments being carried on m the “Caves of the Winds” at the bureau of standards of the Department of Commerce, at Washington states the Christian Science Monitor. Typhoons made to order and under measured control of any speed lip to 180 miles per hour are produced in the wind tunnels. In these streams of air are placed models of airships, airplanes, balloons, fill-tailed bombs, 'hydroplanes, automobiles. factory buildings, skyscrapers, anything subject to air pressures from winds or which must pass through the air with speed and’ efficiency. The experiments tell the air pressure on buildings or bridges; how much a motor-car’s power is used up in pushing the air aside; what wind pressure smokestacks must withstand at maximum local wind speed 1 . The information gleaned permits the steady improvement of airplane parts with respect to stream lining and shows how much of a lift a_given tilt will yield on' various types of craft. An experimental smokestack lu reet in diameter and 30 feet high lias recently been built on the roof of the west laboratory of the bureau. Here pressures and suctions are measured so that designers and builders can make their smokestacks and other cylindrical structures to withstand whatever wind speeds must be provided for. An aluminium model of a factory building, typical of thousands of factories which must be able to withstand wind pressure, may be seen in the giant wind tunnel, the largest of the thiee tunnels at the bureau. . Alexander Graham Bell’s hydroplane boat which later flew 70 miles an hour received its final touches on the basis of tests on models in the bureau’s wind tunnel. Stream lining has received great help from research tests in the tunnels. A certain make of automobile was found to be using 30 horse-power supply to push the air aside. Wind pressures on skyscrapers, about which only conjecture was previously possible, have been measured with great care, and the results embodied in large solid graphic models. , Fundamental information, which will aid the art of aerial navigation in perfecting its stream lines to reduce resistance and increase in the lift efficiency, is also being obtained from the experiments. Thousands of airplane 1 parts have been subjected to artificial i winds equivalent to air forces in flight > and at rest, and information has been furnished which has made possible design of ’planes of increasing efficiency.