UM System Curators Approve State Street S&T Wind Tunnel

In a surprise press release issued the day before tomorrow's University of Missouri Board of Curators meeting, it was announced that S&T will break ground for the campus' long-rumored full scale wind tunnel at the end of the spring 2009 semester.
The City of Rolla, in a joint statement with Missouri, has applauded this expansion of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and has signed a quit-claim deed to State Street between 11th Street and the Havener Center where the $10 million facility will be built. Rolla Mayor Bill Jenks said "the S&T wind tunnel is a huge coup for Missouri S&T and Rolla, as well as a sign that the university's Research Park is fast becoming a reality". Architectural plans show the Campus Support Facility being torn down for parking, and University Drive will be extended through the US Highway 63 intersection to replace public access to the Havener Center.

This project, which jumped to the top of the UM System's capital improvement plan when an as-yet-unnamed S&T alumnus pledged the total amount, will complement S&T's e-Cubed and Green Initiative programs because the electrical energy used to power the 250+ mph wind speeds will come from the Research Reactor on the S&T campus. The facility's exhaust will then drive a massive wind turbine at the rear of the structure capable of providing most of the campus' energy needs. If engineering projections prove correct S&T's coal-burning power plant will be dismantled and replaced with small banks of high-efficiency solar cells to provide back-up power. Removing the power plant will also provide more space for future campus expansion and significantly reduce green house gasses in south-central Missouri.
The state-of-the-art wind tunnel will be known as the State Street Wind-Aided Tunnel (SSWAT). Several automotive and aerospace firms have already expressed an interest in leasing the facility, which is expected to provide twelve full-time jobs for the S&T campus. The anticipated commercial partnerships are expected to strengthen S&T's relationship with commercial aviation firms that already employ hundreds of Missouri S&T alumni.

For some time there have been reports of crude after-hours wind-tunnel experiments already being conducted on State Street, but the unmarked vehicles have not been traced to any specific university department. Two photographs of these rudimentary experiments shown here, have been circulating on the internet but the source is still unknown.

Student groups are expressing hope that projects such as the FSAE Racing, Human Powered Vehicle, Solar Car, Speed Challenge, Advanced Aero Vehicle, and even the Concrete Canoe teams will be able to use the facility when it is not in use by researchers or commercial firms. Each team will be able to save funds normally used to travel to out-of-state wind tunnels to confirm the students' modeling programs.