Physical Characterization of the University of New Hampshire’s Flow Physics Facility Wind Tunnel for Atmospheric Boundary Layers Simulation

The Flow Physics Facility (FPF) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) was employed for Atmospheric BoundaryLayer (ABL) Simulation. The FPF, one of the largest boundary layer wind tunnels in the world, features a test section of 2.8m × 6m × 72m. This extensive flow development fetch is ideal for achieving a naturally developed simulated ABL thickness of O(2m). Pitot static tube and hot wire measurements of the streamwise velocity were collected at three speedsand three wall-roughness configurations. A rural terrain was simulated using Irwin triangular-shaped spires and a barrier of eight hundred 50mm cubical roughness elements with a fetch length of 5m after the spires, following the Counihan method. Experimental results showed good similarity with the rural models in the ASCE Standards (ASCE/SEI 49-12). Additionally, a porous disk turbine model of diameter 1m was placed within the denser rural terrain configuration to study near wake turbulence in a high Reynolds number environment.