Experimental research on blowing-rain intensity and uniformity of rain tunnel for aircraft rain removal testing

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to characterize a rain tunnel that is used for performance testing of aircraft windshield rain removal systems. The rain tunnel in the present study is an open jet wind tunnel with six full cone pressure swirl nozzles arranged at its outlet. Experiments are conducted with water at room temperature as the working medium. The influence of total water supply flow rate and air velocity on the blowing-rain intensity and uniformity is studied. The total water supply flow rate varies from 0.57 m3/h to 1.03 m3/h, while the pressure at the inlet of the nozzle ranges from 1.44 bar to 6.52 bar. The air velocity of 30 m/s, 40 m/s, and 50 m/s is studied. A special test setup has been designed for measurements of the blowing-rain intensity and uniformity. Experimental results indicate that the blowing-rain intensity and uniformity both increase with the increasing total water supply flow rate and decrease with the increasing air velocity.