ONERA
ONERA ( French Office national d'études et de recherches aérospatiales ) is a French public research company in Palaiseau (founded in 1946) and the French counterpart to the German Aerospace Center .
ONERA employs around 2000 people at nine locations, 1500 of whom are scientists and engineers.
Wind tunnel
ONERA has various research wind tunnels :
- in Meudon , near Paris, the original location of ONERA;
- in Fauga-Mauzac in the French Pyrenees;
- in Avrieux near Modane in the French Alps.
The last two include systems of various sizes with which the aerodynamically optimal forms of means of transport (cars, aircraft, etc.) are to be determined. The largest of these systems is also the oldest, reaching almost the speed of sound . This wind tunnel is a German development, in the last years of the Second World War it was built by German engineers on behalf of Messerschmitt at the entrance to the Ötztal in Haiming . At the end of the war, the 30-50% completed wind tunnel was dismantled by the advancing French and rebuilt near Modane in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. The two counter-rotating compressor wheels of the wind tunnel are driven directly with water power from a reservoir 860 m higher through two Pelton turbines. This drive principle had already been devised by both German and French engineers, but was first implemented for the Ötztal wind tunnel. The administration building of the wind tunnel in Avrieux was also built according to the German architectural plans. The total of 22 propeller blades on the two compressor wheels were replaced by aerodynamically and statically recalculated ones in 2006 after frequent downtimes impaired the operation of the wind tunnel due to material fatigue. With a diameter of the measurement section of 8 m and a flow speed close to the speed of sound, the wind tunnel is still one of the world's largest wind tunnels today.
Airspace, sea and space surveillance
ONERA also developed the Nostradamus and GRAVES radar systems.
Trivia
The exterior view of the university in the fictional town of Guernon in the film The Purple Rivers was shot at the institute.
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 48 ° 47 ′ 51 ″ N , 2 ° 16 ′ 58.1 ″ E