Experimental Flutter Analysis over Different Selected Wing Planforms by Varying the Wing Cross Section Geometry

Abstract

Flutter is a phenomenon that occurs in structures which are subjected to aerodynamic forces. As the wing model flies at increasing speeds and increasing angle of attack the vibrations get increased and the frequency of these modes coincide with each other which leads to resonance, this is called Flutter and this may lead to catastrophic failures in the aircraft flight. An appropriate wing model design includes various parameters that need to be selected according to the wind-tunnel test conditions. The material used for skin is monocot, spars are made of aluminium, ribs are made of balsa wood. We follow an iterative approach in which angle of attack and true airspeed are constant per iteration. In the present note, parameters we are going to use are design lift coefficient and location of maximum camber, the flutter response of the wing models is detected experimentally with the help of accelerometers placed at the leading edge and trailing edge of the aero elastic models. The aero elastic models we use in the present experiment have two degrees of freedom, these wing models with accelerometer setup are placed in the test section of the wind tunnel where Arduino UNO gives the code to encrypt the flutter response to save the values from each iteration; by the observation of this iterative approach we can reach a conclusion. This experimental flutter analysis on aircraft wings ensures that flutter does not occur if we make sure the model strictly operates in its design limitations.