Gust load alleviation on an aircraft wing by trailing edge Circulation Control

Abstract

This paper reports an investigation of gust load alleviation using Circulation Control for a three-dimensional wing including aerodynamic and structure interaction. The Field Velocity Method is introduced to the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes solutions for gust response simulations. Structural dynamic equations of motion are coupled with the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes solutions to consider the aeroelastic effects due to the gust response. The effects of gust load alleviation on the BAH wing using Circulation Control are tested under typical ‘one-minus-cosine’ gust profiles from certification specification defined by European Aviation Safety Agency. The results show a promising capability of Circulation Control for gust load alleviation as significant gust load alleviation effects have been achieved for both the rigid and elastic BAH wings in the test cases. For the BAH wing considering aeroelasticity, the displacement oscillations induced by gusts have been effectively suppressed by Circulation Control. The results also show that Circulation Control has the fast frequency response characteristics, where more than 50% of the total change in lift coefficient can be obtained within the non-dimensional time s =U∞tc¯=1.