Design Contract Underway For Wind Tunnel

Tennessee Tech finalizing a contract to begin the design phase for the university’s new wind tunnel.

Chief Government Affairs Officer Terry Saltsman said design work is expected to take most of this winter, focused on the foundation needed for the facility. Construction could begin this spring and pieces of the wind tunnel should arrive from Detroit mid-summer. Saltsman said the university is using the company that designed the wind tunnel to plan the new foundation.

“They can take their current design package that they used several years ago when they built it and use that same, just site adapt that to our location in Crossville,” Saltsman said. “That’ll save a lot of time, save a lot of money as well.”

Saltsman said the university is still exploring different ways it can use the tunnel including work related to wind loads for hypersonic aircrafts and missiles. Saltsman said he expects the tunnel to be in place and operating by the end of 2025.

“We have a number of researchers already working at Tech who are interested in this wind tunnel,” Saltsman said. “Matter of fact, the concept of needing a wind tunnel originated in the College of Engineering several years ago.”

Saltsman said Tech has an engineering professor from another university involved in the planning process who will definitely be coming back to use the tunnel on a regular basis. Saltsman said Tech has also had inquiries from the University of Tennessee and Middle Tennessee State University about using the tunnel.

“We have two professors that pretty much all of their research work is done with wind tunnels and they go to other locations: Tullahoma, Texas A&M, Wichita State, other schools that have wind tunnels,” Saltsman said. “There’s not many of them. But anyway, seeing their needs and seeing what we can do we started looking for one and found this one.”

Saltsman said Tech’s facilities office will supervise the project but it will be handled mostly by contractors.