Feasibility test of a deformation measurement at an excited aileron in-flight by means of Stereo Image Pattern Correlation Technique (IPCT)

Abstract

The deformation measurement Technique stereo – IPCT is already well established in wind tunnel testing. However for application of IPCT in flight testing special requirements and set-up limitations must be considered. Therefore, a feasibility study on the ground has been carried out to prove the applicability of the measuring method under flight conditions. For this purpose, the prototype of the Dornier Do 728 was used to set up a camera system with the same characteristic parameters as found at an Airbus A340-300. The evaluation of the ground test measurements was carried out using the DaVis software provided by LaVision. Due to the specific demands of the flight test, the software had to be adapted by combining marker based position detection and IPCT and the integrating of a re-calibration procedure. The essential questions answered in this work are: • whether the aileron deformation measurement by means of IPCT can be carried out during flight, with the set-up limitations of an in-flight measurement; • what measurement errors have to be expected and • how the measurement setup affects the accuracy of measurement.