Aeroelastic Benchmark Experiments, Phase I

Potential NASA Commercial Applications: The experimental data collected during Phase II of this effort will provide an invaluable resource to the aeroelastic community. The methods employed in the development of these experiments will provide an experimental dataset that provides additional confidence that published structural dynamic behavior is consistent with the experimentally derived flutter boundary. Pressure measurement will provide an additional resource for code validation and for gaining insight into discrepancies between experimental and analytical data. Data at a variety of angles of attack will generate more data in the transonic regime that will be highly value for validation of computational methods. The advances in knowledge gained through this benchmark experiment have the potential to lead to improved performance in aerospace vehicles ranging from transports, to fighters, to launch vehicles. The proposed research has the potential to dramatically improve the aeroelastic design and analysis process for aerospace vehicles. Phase II development will result in a rich dataset for aeroelastic method validation. Application of these methods during the design process will provide better insight into aeroelastic and ASE behavior resulting in reduced weight and increased structural efficiency. This will result in improvements in overall vehicle performance that will be especially critical to new configurations such as truss braces wings, high speed transports, and blended wing body configurations. More »