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Tuft (aeronautics)

Device to reveal air flow From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tuft (aeronautics)
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In aeronautics, tufts are pieces of yarn or string, typically around 15 cm (6 in) long, attached to an aircraft surface in a grid pattern and imaged during flight. Their motion can be observed and recorded to locate air flow features such as boundary layer separation and reattachment. Tufting is, therefore, a technique for flow visualization. They are used during flight testing to study air flow direction, strength, and boundary layer properties.[citation needed]

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A winglet on a KC-135 Stratotanker with attached tufts showing airflow during NASA tests in 1979–80.

The world's largest bed of tufts (18.6 m by 18.6 m, 61 feet by 61 feet) was created at NASA Ames Research Center to study air flow fields involving a helicopter's rotor disk.[1][2]

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