Characteristics and mechanism of twin-vertical-tail buffet response on airplane
configuration with wing root leading edge extension (LEX) were studied by both experiment and
computation. Low-speed wind tunnel experiments were carried out to measure the root bending
moment and tip acceleration of vertical tail. Vortical flow patterns were visualized via laser light
sheet technique. Three-dimensional computation was performed to solve the unsteady Euler
equations on rigid model. The results indicate that (1) bursting of vortices emanating from LEX is the
main source of twin-vertical-tail buffet; (2) the Euler equations is able to predict the general
characteristics of vertical-tail buffet response reasonably.
