A wind-tunnel technique for flutter investigations on swept wings with body freedoms

Abstract

In the past it has been usual to ignore the body freedoms of aircraft in making wing-flutter investigations. This practice is no longer justified for modern designs with swept wings, and especially for tailless aircraft. In this report a technique is described which has been developed for wind-tunnel tests on wing-flutter models with the body freedoms. A half-span wing model is used, attached to a rigid body; longitudinal stability is ensured, and the body-mass parameters are reduced to small values, by an appropriate arrangement of supporting springs. The ease of parameter variations makes the wind-tunnel rig suitable for systematic investigations.