Built Environment gets own wind tunnel facility

Shortly, the location where De Hal once stood – the building that housed the university library until several years back – will see a parking lot as well as a wind tunnel hall. The Executive Board recently allocated funds for the construction for a hall to conduct wind engineering research, meant for the Department of Built Environment.

The hall will be five meters high and take up twenty percent of the available surface area. The other eighty percent will be made into approximately seventy parking spaces by DH soon, and a frontage road alongside Dorgelolaan.

In the wind tunnel, Professor Bert Blocken hopes to be conducting research that's commercially viable for the department. Think of the positioning of wind turbines, or cycling teams that want to know exactly what effect wind has on their athletic performances. According to Blocken, the preliminary design for the wind tunnel is advancing rapidly, and he hopes the hall can be completed by mid October 2015. The department will be financing the hall interior, including measuring equipment, and has 750,000 earmarked to that end.

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