The Basic Aerodynamics Research Tunnel - A facility dedicated to code validation

Computational fluid dynamics code validation requirements are discussed together with the need for close interaction between experiment and code development. Code validation experiments require a great deal of data and for the experiments to be successful, a highly-productive research facility is required. A description is provided of the NASA Langley Basic Aerodynamics Research Tunnel (BART); especially the instrumentation and experimental techniques that make the facility ideally suited to code validation experiments. Results are presented from recent tests which illustrate the techniques used in BART.