High lift INflight VAlidation (HINVA) - Overview about the 1st Flight Test Campaign

Abstract

The objective of the joint research project HINVA is to significantly enhance the accuracy and reliability of the prediction and assessment of the aerodynamic performance of civil aircraft with deployed high lift devices. To achieve this goal, the most advanced numerical and experimental simulation methods currently in industrial use are to be validated against dedicated flight test data focusing on the maximum lift regime. DLR’s flight test aircraft Airbus A320-200 ATRA serves as a common configurative basis. The flight test data are to be compared against prediction methods for aerodynamic high lift performance, that is high Re-No cryogenic wind tunnel testing in the European transonic Windtunnel ETW, and numerical simulation based on DLR’s TAU code. Within the high lift regime, the focus is laid on the determination of maximum lift and the corresponding angle of attack. Accordingly, the reference device setting corresponds to the landing configuration. A core element of the project is the generation of a dedicated fully harmonized validation database consisting of wind tunnel and corresponding flight test data. Utilizing the unique advantages of all three methods in a synergetic way is regarded as a basis for an improved determination of flight performance and the dominant aerodynamic phenomena in the maximum lift regime for such type of aircraft. The findings are feeding a simulation strategy for the use and application of numerical tools as well as wind tunnel testing to determine maximum lift parameters within accuracy margins set by the industrial high lift design process. The project is subdivided into three main workpackages: ATRA flight test, ETW wind tunnel test, and CFD simulations. The present contribution concentrates on the flight test activities in workpackage 1. A first flight test campaign, carried out in summer 2012 at Airbus in Toulouse, has provided pressure measurements, transitions locations, wing deformations measurements, as well as flow visualization using flow cones. The focus of the investigations presented here is linked to the second flight test campaign on the ATRA, which has been completed in the spring of 2015 in Braunschweig, Germany. While the first flight test campaign in 2012 has provided basically surface data, the second campaign has been scheduled to provide complementary off-body data. The preparation of the flight test campaign, the set-up for the flight test instrumentation and exemplary results of the second flight test campaign are described.