Risk Analysis for Flutter of Laminar Wings

Abstract

The effect of transition from laminar to turbulent flow on the flutter behaviour is discussed on basis of classical and new wind-tunnel tests. Requirements are defined for numerical methods in order to predict the risk of transition effects on the flutter behavior of transport aircraft with laminar wings. Due to the lack of validation data and reliable transition modelling, the accuracy of flutter predictions for aircraft with laminar wing is expected to be lower than for conventional aircraft. Instead of managing late the risk in an engineering way with possible loss of performance, the authors propose to develop early enough adequate transition models and to prepare a wind-tunnel test at high Reynolds and Mach number conditions with a laminar wing in forced motion.