Thanks again everyone for the suggestions. I'm still working on getting this thing to fit in the structural constraints of the wind tunnel, but when I do get it finished, I'll be sure to post a picture or a video of it in operation and the details of the mechanism. Again thanks very much to...
racookpe1978 and ScottyUK,
I was talking with the grad student the other day and he says that the main idea is to get away from the pneumatically operated system. Basically he wants a whole new electric motor system which will operate the pitot. Also, the problem with manually operating the...
Scotty, thanks for the ideas. One of my first ideas was like this. I was thinking of using a driven worm gear to turn a granny which the pitot is mounted on. This would indeed prevent the back-driving. My estimate is that a normal opening would take around 3-7 seconds which is about 0.2 to 0.5...
Mike, thanks for the feedback! Actually, your first guess is pretty darn good. The original setup for this device at the first wind tunnel we used was indeed a pneumatically driven device (I've asked the grads and they really don't know how it worked though). The problem is, our pressure tab is...
Hi,
I am a Junior in ME and currently working as a graduate assistant at a wind tunnel research facility. I have been given the task of designing a mechanism which would remove a long pitot probe from the flow stream in the wind tunnel. The mechanism will be able to move a 21 in. long 5/16 in...
