Integrated Experimental and Numerical Resaerch on the Aerodynamics of Unsteady Aircraft

Abstract

Abstract For the experimental determination of the dynamic wind tunnel data a new combined motion test capability was developed at the German-Dutch Wind Tunnels DNW for their 3m Low Speed Wind Tunnel NWB in Braunschweig, Germany, using a unique six degree-of-freedom test rig called ‘Model Positioning Mechanism’ (MPM) as an improved successor to the older systems. With that cutting-edge device several transport aircraft configurations including a blended wing body configuration were tested in different modes of oscillatory motions roll, pitch and yaw as well as delta wing geometries like X-31 equipped with remote controlled rudders and flaps to be able to simulate realistic flight maneuvers, e.g. a Dutch Roll. This paper describes the motivation behind these tests and the test setup and in addition gives a short introduction into time accurate maneuver testing capabilities incorporating models with remote controlled control surfaces. Furthermore, the adaptation of numerical methods for the prediction of dynamic derivatives is described and some examples with the DLR-F12 configuration will be given. The calculations are based on RANS-solution using the finite volume parallel solution algorithm with an unstructured discretization concept (DLR TAU-code).