The Aeronautical/Astronautical Research Laboratory (AARL) is an aerospace engineering research facility operated by

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. It is the principal research facility of the College of Engineering's Department of Aerospace and Astronautical Engineering. It is located on the grounds of Ohio State University Airport, in Columbus, Ohio.

Facilities

The research activities conducted at AARL are based around a compressed air system that is capable of holding 1500 cubic feet (42.5 m3) of air at 2560 psia (17.65MPa), a 2 MW on site DC power station, and vacuum system capable of holding suction at .15 psia (1.01 kPa). The AARL houses four active

wind tunnels Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

(dimensions of test section given in name): :-3'x5'(.9m x 1.5m) Subsonic Wind Tunnel, an open circuit, Eiffel wind tunnel with top speeds of 150 ft/s (45m/s) :-6"x22" (15cm x 56cm) Transonic Windtunnel, a blowdown wind tunnel used specifically for airfoil research :-6"x3" (15cm x 6cm) Transonic Wind Tunnel, a small wind tunnel used to research heat transfer in the high subsonic range :-6" (15cm) Hypersonic Wind Tunnel a blowdown wind tunnel capable of sustaining speeds of M=6 Computers complement wind tunnel and all other experimentation at AARL.

LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-c ...

is extensively used for experiment documentation and control, while FLUENT and the

Ohio Supercomputer Center The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) is a supercomputer facility located on the western end of the Ohio State University campus, just north of Columbus. Established in 1987, the OSC partners with Ohio universities, labs and industries, providing st ...

are used for

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate ...

experimentation. The most prominent area of research at AARL is jet engine test cell design. Under the patronage of

GE Aviation GE Aviation, a subsidiary of General Electric, is headquartered in Evendale, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. GE Aviation is among the top aircraft engine suppliers, and offers engines for the majority of commercial aircraft. GE Aviation is part of t ...

, Ohio State Engineering has been at the forefront of jet engine test cell design for over 25 years. To test jet engine test cell designs, scale models of the interior of the building proposed to hold the test cell, as well as the test cell itself are reconstructed at AARL. The models are incredibly detailed, going as far as to contain scale furniture. Any number of scale jet engines can then be placed in the model, including a 1/12 scale model of the

GE90 The General Electric GE90 is a family of high-bypass turbofan aircraft engines built by GE Aviation for the Boeing 777, with thrust ratings from . It entered service with British Airways in November 1995. It is one of three options for the 777 ...

, the largest jet engine ever built. The AARL houses numerous other research facilities, including the Mechanical Engineering Department's Gas Dynamics and Turbulence Laboratory(GDTL) and Gas Turbine Lab. GDTL works cooperatively with

NASA Glenn NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facilit ...

Research Center and

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene and Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wr ...

researching

aeroacoustics Aeroacoustics is a branch of acoustics that studies noise generation via either turbulent fluid motion or aerodynamic forces interacting with surfaces. Noise generation can also be associated with periodically varying flows. A notable example of th ...

and high reynolds number flow related to propulsion. The Gas Turbine Lab is an R&D laboratory that focuses on the development of gas turbine aircraft engines and has an annual budget of over $4 million.

Notes

{{Ohio State University, research University and college laboratories in the United States Ohio State University