Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I need a project combining corrosion and a home made wind tunnel.

Hello and welcome to the forums!

These two ideas seem very different. Could you give us some more information about what you wish to investigate? There are some NASA articles about problems with wind tunnel plumbing and corrosion, but I don't see anything else on the web combining these two ideas. Any further information is appreciated.

Keith

If you are looking to do an experiment on corrosion that uses a wind tunnel vs corrosion of a wind tunnel, perhaps an experiment on the effects corrosion has on the aerodynamics of a wing. If you have access to a wind tunnel (or wish to build one, science buddies has directions on how to build one) you could test these. Beware, it requires some level of knowledge of fluid dynamics that may be difficult for a 6-8 grade student, though not impossible, so I don't want to discourage. Post back with greater detail of what you are thinking, and we will try to help.

Another good possibility would be to see whether metal exposed to fast moving air rusts faster than metal exposed to stagnant air.

I honestly don't know which one would corrode more, which is usually a pretty good sign for a science experiment . (I suspect that the relative humidity will matter more than the air speed, but it's seems like something that should be tested)

How would I set up this experiment? Maybe put iron wool in a dish of water inside the wind tunnel and the same amount of iron wool with the same amount of iron wool outside the wind tunnel? Or?

Hello Pmaeda,

I would suggest it would perhaps be more interesting if you presented the water to the steel wool in the air. You could change the relative humidity and temperature in the room where you have the wind tunnel with a humidifier and the room heating and place dry steel wool or other material in and outside the wind tunnel.

Good luck, WW