We hope that you will enjoy this class (regardless of the workload). This lab is one of the strengths of our School, providing students with an experience unavailable in many other programs.  Remember we are here to help you, so do not hesitate to consult your instructor and TAs.

Course Goals
This course is intended to accomplish three things:

• provide students a "hands-on" experience with concepts taught in the aerodynamics/fluids courses;
• teach experiment design, data analysis and measurement methods/techniques employed for aerodynamic and fluid sytems;
• help develop effective communication skills, in both written and oral form.

• wind tunnels;
• lift and drag coefficients of airfoils;
• pressure distributions on airfoils;
• boundary layers;
• jet and wake flows;
• reacting flows and acoustics;
• shock tubes;
• supersonic wind tunnels;
• supersonic nozzles;

Experimental Methods and Measurement Techniques
This lab course covers experimental planning, and the application of data acquisition and analysis concepts such as measurement resolution, error, computer based data acquisition, discrete sampling of time-varying signals, and frequency-space analysis. It also covers the theory and application of various measurement techniques/transducers, including:

• strain gage force balances;
• pitot and static pressure probes for velocity measurements and pressure distributions on surfaces;
• flow visualization (smoke, hydrogen bubbles and schlieren imaging) in subsonic and supersonic flows;
• hot-wire anemometers and Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) for unsteady velocity measurements;
• capacitance and piezoresistive strain gage transducers for steady or slowly changing pressure measurements;
• piezoelectric transducers for rapidly varying (high frequency) pressure measurements (e.g., periodic acoustic pressures and transient shock tube pressures);
• thermocouples for temperature measurements;
• photomultipliers and optical radiation measurements in combustors.

Communication
For each lab, students must prepare a technical report. The lab reports are graded, with the grade emphasizing not only the content, but also the effectiveness of the communication. An engineer who cannot effectively communicate ideas or findings cannot be an effective contributor to their team, company, or organization. There is also an oral presentation at the end of the semester, which gives you a change to practice and improve your technical speaking skills.