WIND TUNNEL EXPERIMENTS IN THE TRIAL GARDEN OF GROßENZERSDORF (BOKU) WITH CLIMBING PLANTS

In the week of August 09th-13th, the first wind tunnel experiments with climbing plants took place. The team included Aron Göndör (TU Vienna), Simone Trimmel (MUL), Susan Sauerbrey (BOKU) and Philipp Spörl (BOKU).
For this experiment, modules with climbing plants were clamped into the previously developed wind tunnel, and the wind tunnel was positioned on the main road to work with the roadside ambient air.

Optical particle counters were used to investigate the concentration of particulate matter of the ambient air, which were placed before and after the climbing plant located in the wind tunnel, respectively. In addition, leaf samples of the plants under investigation (Wisteria sinensis) were taken after an experimental period of 3 hours in each case and examined in the laboratory. In addition to this, vegetation parameters of reference plants such as leaf area, leaf area index, cover ratio and cubic plant volume were measured in advance. For conclusions on atmospheric parameters, wind speed, wind direction, temperature and humidity were measured inside and outside the wind tunnel at different locations.

The pictures show some impressions during the trial setup, trials and sampling.