Preparation and execution of the NICETRIP low- and high-speed wind tunnel tests

Abstract

The present paper reports the preparation and execution of high- and low-speed wind tunnel tests of the tilt-rotor project NICETRIP. Within the NICETRIP project (Novel Innovative Competitive Effective Tilt Rotor Integrated Project), co-funded by the EU, wind tunnel tests were conducted for a heavily instrumented 1:5 scale model of a tilt-rotor aircraft (3.5 m wingspan, 1.48 m diameter rotors) based on the ERICA concept (Enhanced Rotorcraft Innovative Concept Achievement). The current paper provides an overview of the contributions of DLR to the low- and high-speed wind tunnel tests performed at DNW-LLF (German-Dutch Wind Tunnels Large Low-speed Facility) in 2013 and at ONERA-S1MA in 2014. It gives detailed information about the preparation activities, the model hardware and its control, the necessary adaptations for the model preparation at DLR, and results of the ground vibration tests. Additionally, the data acquisition and monitoring during the wind tunnel experiments, the trimming of the model in the wind tunnel and the conducted tests are described, including encountered problems and how they were solved. In the last section, some representative test results are shown.