Design and testing of an active aeroelastic test bench (Aatb) for unsteady aerodynamic and aeroelastic experiments

The Active Aeroelastic Test Bench (AATB) is designed for the study of low subsonic unsteady aerodynamics through forced motion experiments, as well as active aeroelastic experiments. First, the forces generated on a wind tunnel model subjected to an arbitrary oscillation in pitch and plunge are measured during forced motion experiments. Next, by operating the AATB in closed loop, the occurring aerodynamic forces are translated into pitch and plunge displacements through emulated stiffness of the actuators. This allows for the emulation of different linear and nonlinear elastic behaviour of the wind tunnel model. Via this emulated stiffness, it is also possible to simulate the longitudinal rigid body motion of a flexible wind tunnel model, and hence, study the response and the coupling between flexible and rigid modes. The obtained data is used for the validation and development of frequency-domain system identification methods, in order to generate aeroelastic models from noisy measurement data. This paper threats with the design and initial testing of the AATB for a rigid wing with constant section. © 2015, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc. All rights Reserved.