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Stability Wind Tunnel

Flow visualization on a wing prototype in the Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel—one of the nation’s largest university-operated wind tunnels with maximum speeds of 80 meters per second. The Stability Tunnel is a leading research facility for aeroacoustics and aerodynamics.

Our faculty and students are investigating, designing, and manufacturing ways to move boldly—and safely—through spaces both well traveled and unexplored.

We are:

  • Conducting cutting-edge research and generating novel technologies to traverse the skies and the oceans;
  • Designing and developing technologies to harvest clean, renewable energy from the motion of the atmosphere and the ocean;
  • Inventing instruments and sensors to probe the mysteries of the ocean, the atmosphere, and space;
  • Rising to—and meeting—today’s aerospace and ocean engineering challenges.

Our research is built upon a strong foundation of core competencies, which are the fundamental concepts that ground our program and lead our alumni to distinction.

An image showing various research facilities and projects

We focus on six strategic thrust areas, which align with faculty expertise in supporting core technology areas

  • Aero-hydrodynamics 
  • Structures and materials
  • Dynamics, control, and estimation
  • Space engineering
  • Propulsion
  • Fabrication, prototyping, and additive manufacturing
  • Computational mechanics