On the Design of Aeroelastically Scaled Models of High Aspect-Ratio Wings

Recently, innovative aircraft designs were proposed to improve aerodynamic performance. Examples include high aspect ratio wings to reduce the aerodynamic induced drag to achieve lower fuel consumption. Such solution when combined with a lightweight structure may lead to aeroelastic instabilities such as flutter at lower air speeds compared to more conventional wing designs. Therefore, in order to ensure safe flight operation, it is important to study the aeroelastic behavior of the wing throughout the flight envelope. This can be achieved by either experimental or computational work. Experimental wind tunnel and scaled flight test models need to exhibit similar aeroelastic behavior to the full scale air vehicle. In this paper, three different aeroelastic scaling strategies are formulated and applied to a flexible high aspect-ratio wing. These scaling strategies are first evaluated in terms of their ability to generate reduced models with the intended representations of the aerodynamic, structural and inertial characteristics. Next, they are assessed in terms of their potential in representing the unsteady non-linear aeroelastic behavior in three different flight conditions. The scaled models engineered by exactly scaling down the internal structure suitably represent the intended aeroelastic behavior and allow the performance assessment for the entire flight envelope. However, since both the flight and wind tunnel models are constrained by physical and budgetary limitations, custom built structural models are more likely to be selected. However, the latter ones are less promising to study the entire flight envelope.