Steady as she blows

A fully loaded Jumbo jet can weigh 400 tonnes, so keeping the plane flying safely is a tremendous feat, even more so during sudden gusts or turbulence. Wind tunnels and flight simulation are critical to aircraft design, development and testing. The EU-funded GUDGET project is developing a new gust generator to investigate the aeroelastic behaviour of aircraft during high amplitude gusts, and an advanced, heavily instrumented and equipped WT model with a motorised aileron enabling the testing of new gust load alleviation techniques. The system and the WT model will be installed at a world-class European transonic wind tunnel facility to aid in the creation of a database that will improve numerical models and their predictive accuracy.

Objective

GUDGET answers the CfP JTI-CS2-2018-CfP08-AIR-01-38 and aims at providing an innovative experimental set-up for the investigation of gust loads, to be installed in the transonic facility ONERA S3Ch. The proposal GUDGET will design, manufacture, calibrate, verify and finally install in the ONERA S3Ch WT an enhanced gust generator system and an aeroelastic half-model connected to the WT side wall, with the purpose to support the TM in the execution of a WT test campaign and gather information on the aeroelastic behaviour of the model under high amplitude gust conditions, with the acquisition of a relevant database which will allow to assess the numerical capabilities to predict gust loads. The WT test campaign is outside the scope of the GUDGET project. At this aim, the consortium GUDGET has to perform the design of the experimental setup: design and manufacture the WT model according to technical requirements provided by the TM. Special care will be dedicated to the dynamic characteristics of the final model and that a specific interface with the WT will be implemented. In parallel, the consortium will perform a preliminary trade-off analysis to find the best configuration of the GG to comply with requirements dictated in the topic, by considering innovative configurations of tilting airfoils moved by mechanical actuators as well as blowing slots fed by fluidic actuators or a combination of both. The best solution over a number of candidates will be chosen as the one to be designed in detail and then manufactured, calibrated/ verified and eventually installed in the WT. The GUDGET consortium has been setup by joining well recognized and very experienced companies and universities: IBK and POLIMI with a strong experience in the design, manufacturing and operating of WT models; DREAM for supporting CFD and numerical analysis; AVDES for the manufacturing activities and CTEC for the design and implementation of actuation devices.

For more info: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/831802 ↗