'Quiet' Mach 6 Wind Tunnel at Purdue Helps Shape Future Aircraft.

Byline: Purdue University

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Jan. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Purdue University engineers have developed a wind tunnel that is the only one of its kind in the world capable of running quietly at "hypersonic" speeds, helping researchers to design advanced aircraft and missiles.

No other wind tunnel runs quietly while conducting experiments in airstreams traveling at Mach 6 - six times the speed of sound, said Steven Schneider, an aerospace engineer and professor in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Researchers will use the $1 million wind tunnel to help design advanced aircraft that travel at hypersonic speeds, or faster than Mach 5, which is about 4,000 miles per hour at sea level.

Purdue engineers will present a paper about the wind tunnel on Thursday (Jan. 12) during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit in Reno, Nev. The paper was written by Schneider and graduate research assistants Matthew P. Borg and Thomas J. Juliano.

A team of Purdue engineers led by Schneider finished assembling the wind tunnel in 2001.

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