Final touches to the shark wind tunnel

A winch had to be added to the 14 foot trailer the shark wind tunnel would be hauled on.

The side rails on the front of the trailer where the fan would be located had to be removed.

The 800 pound fan was winched up on to the trailer and then had to be turned 90 degrees. The fan was raised up and the metal frame on wheels was placed under it. Doing this did two things. First it raised the fan up from the floor of the trailer to clear the bottom angle iron frame of the trailer and also allowed it to be turned.

The fan now turned and supported with 1-1/2" sleepers along the trailers angle iron frame.

The sides of the connector could be opened reducing the 72" fan opening down to 48" KidWind standard tunnel size.

The base for the standard size KidWind tunnel was set up next.

The standard 48" KidWind tunnel could now be set up and attached to the variable speed fan.

Lastly the shark was rolled up the ramp and slid back to cover the turbine testing area. 

This is what the teams will see as they go up the trailer ramp to place their turbines in the wind tunnel to be tested. In this configuration the trailer ramp can be tied up and the whole unit pulled in a local parade. 

For shipping to be used at annual World KidWind Challenges the fan, base and standard KW wind tunnel get folded up and secured like this.

Now there is room for the shark to be placed on the trailer and the tail gate raised up and closed. The area between the sharks jaws is open and can be used to hold the two standard KidWind wind tunnel and barn fans that are used at the annual World KidWind Challenges. The entire trailer will be loaded on a flatbed and shipped to the different sites each year.

Here it is in "parade mode" being hauled behind my truck. I think that having the shark pulled by a small yellow school bus would get students attention and be a nice touch.

 Can you hear the theme song from the movie?
 

 
 




  
 

The eyes have it

 

The shark is going to have red, pointed tail lights, that light up for eyes.  The tail lights and their holders are mounted into fiberglass forms that will be attached to the sharks head after the head is done.

Fiberglass cloth being attached to the frame.

I wanted to see just how the head would look with some teeth. The tricky part was going to be the teeth on the upper jaw. Anyone that has ever painted overhead knows the problem. It would be much worse with brushing on of a thick layer of fiberglass resin. This problem would have to be solved.

Turning the shark head over would be the solution. Putting a pipe through the sharks jaws would give me a pivot point if I could support and anchor it some how. I had two trees on the edge of the driveway that I could use. Hanging two come along hoists in the trees gave me the ability to raise the 300 pound shark head high enough so I could spin it over.

The process was slow but steady and would do the trick.

Now work could begin on the roof of the mouth and upper teeth placement.

Gravity would now be my friend.

The teeth were attached to the jaws by wrapping a strip of 4" wide fiberglass cloth around each tooth and then fixing it in place by coating it with the resin and hardener.

After a few hours of hot gluing and fiberglassing the teeth were all in place and the shark rotated back to normal.
 

Shark teeth and fiberglass

Having learned a thing or two in the process of making 15 replacement teeth for the shark in downtown Darlington I began making the 24 new teeth I would need for the KidWind wind tunnel shark. First I would cover the original shark teeth I had with Saran Wrap. This would keep the plaster cast material from sticking to the original's tooth surface. 

After a few minutes the plaster cast material was hard and the cast shell removed from the original shark tooth.

Now the plaster cast for each tooth was covered with a layer of 9 ounce fiberglass cloth. Hot glue was used to keep the fiberglass cloth in place until a coat of resin hardener was applied.

The final step was to remove the plaster cast material from the inside of the hardened fiberglass. One down and 23 to go.

While working on the teeth I could go back to the shark frame. First I covered the 1/2" rebar with 1/2" chicken wire using hog rings to hold it in place. The chicken wire would help give the fiberglass cloth some shape and support.

Here you can see some of the chicken wire on the top of the sharks head.

I got the idea to try fiberglass made of chopped fibers about 1" long called  fiberglass matt. This was a mistake and the matt literally fell apart do to gravity when it was soaked down with the resin hardener. 

Now it was time to start covering the chicken wire with the fiberglass cloth. Again hot glue was used to hold the fiberglass cloth in place. The cloth would then be covered with resin and hardener. The finished product would be just like a Corvette body. It looked like it was going to take a lot of cloth and gallons of resin to do the job.

 

 

Forming the wire frame armature

 

Just so you can see what I am making and how it turned. Here it is setup in the Testing Mode.

The KidWind teams would walk up the ramp and place their turbine in the wind tunnel chamber for performance testing. You can see a single blade turbine in the test area.

Here the trailer is set up for Parade Mode. My plan is to take the KidWind shark tunnel to local area parades to get the word out about the KidWind program. A two foot high skirt will be run around the bottom of the trailer with sponsor and program information printed out.

And last here the trailer is setup in Transport Mode. Another two standard KidWind wind tunnels can be loaded inside the shark and the whole trailer can then be loaded on a flat bed truck for shipping to the different World KidWind Challenge locations year after year.

Now getting down to the construction business. I am using 1/2" rebar for the frame. The trick is to wire two of the bars together, as shown, for bending at the same time.

My lawn mower with a ball hitch made a nice solid bending jig for the two rebars tied together,

Bending and welding the formed bars and this is what I got to work with. Added a set of wheels so I could move it around in the driveway. The 1/2" rebar weighs in at 1 pound per foot and I used 14 twenty foot long pieces totaling 280 pounds.

I was happy with the shape and form. Next will be covering the frame with chicken wire.
 

Shark Sighting at KidWind wind tunnel

 If you liked the story about replacing the teeth on the Jaws shark photo op on Darlington's Main Street I think you will like as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story."

It starts with the idea to build a shark just like the one I replaced the teeth on and mounting it on the front of our new high speed KidWind wind tunnel. 

To do this I built a scale model out of wire and pink foam. The pink foam represents the 4' be 4' KidWind wind tunnel test chamber sitting on it's base.  The wire is the outline of the shark jaws profile.

Here you can see I have added the rest of the shark head. The idea is to build it so that KidWind teams have to enter the wind tunnel to test their wind turbines by going through the jaws of the shark.

The mock up begins with having the high speed wind tunnel on it's base and then using plastic tubing to get the arch of the jaws to scale and size. You can see some of the frame work made out of 1/2" steel rebar around the wind tunnel.

So if you want to see how this project turns out keep checking the blog as I will be posting all the construction steps along the way.