News

Aeroelasticity

Gust effect control: a European first at ONERA

ONERA?s teams have achieved an active gust load control demonstration in the S3Ch transonic wind tunnel in Meudon. This is the result of years of work within the context of the European project Clean Sky JTI Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft.""

23 February 2015

A veritable first in Europe in the transonic field, the recent closed-loop control tests are an important step in the demonstration of gust load alleviation: alleviations on the order of 70% were achieved for the response level of the model’s first aeroelastic mode.



This work opens up new perspectives for future aircraft design: lighter, safer, more efficient and less polluting. Within its scientific departments, ONERA brings together all of the skills and resources necessary for these advances.

Le dispositif expérimental (réalisé avec la société Aviation Design) est composé d’une maquette aéroélastique (au 1er plan) et d’un générateur de rafales (au 2nd plan). La flèche illustre la propagation de la rafale. L’effet des champs de rafale sur les comportements aérodynamiques et aéroélastiques de la maquette a été analysé et les données expérimentales délivrées aux principaux partenaires de L’ONERA (Airbus et Dassault Aviation) aux fins de validation de leurs méthodes numériques.

The experimental device (made with the company Aviation Design) consists of an aeroelastic model (at the front) and a gust generator (at the back). The arrow shows the propagation of the gust. The effect of gust fields on the aerodynamic and aeroelastic behaviour of the model was analysed and the experimental data was delivered to ONERA’s main partners (Airbus and Dassault Aviation) for the validation of their numerical methods.

 

Résultats de contrôle pour Mach = 0.3 et 0.73 sur des réponses accélérométriques pour une perturbation rafale de type large bande

Control results for Mach = 0.3 and 0.73 on accelerometer responses for a broadband gust disturbance

 



Gust response control tests (movements are slowed down 10 times).

Flow at Mach = 0.73, or a speed of almost 900 km/h.

Back to the list