Design and Construction of a Detachable Traverse System for Small Scaled Quasi Atmospheric Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel

Data collection in the lateral and vertical axes is crucial to inspect the heterogeneity of the inflow condition of the wind tunnel and the development of the boundary layer. A customized traverse system uses three stepper motors to control the X, Y, and Z positions with the structure is built with 2020 and 2040 aluminum extrusion for easy assembly. To ensure positional accuracy, the traverse system is tested on its accuracy with the mean absolute error (MAE) for single movements must be less than 1.5mm for the Y and Z axes to accurately capture the lateral-vertical flow structure of the wind tunnel's inflow condition. The MAE for single movements is 1.189mm for the X-axis, 0.069mm for the Y-axis, and 0.054mm for the Z-axis, all within the set limits. Only the X-axis 10mm increment movements failed at all tested speeds due to the errors in the smaller movements cumulated into a more significant error. In contrast, the mean MPE for other increments is 0.93%. The Y and Z axes have continuity MPEs of 0.13% and 0.47%, respectively, within the requirements.