Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Testing via Designed Experiments: Challenges and Ways Forward

Abstract

Engineers with experience in ground test can attest that, although the confines of wind tunnels permit low noise testing, what is lacking many times are efficient test plans and the full use of the massive amount of data collected. From the perspective of industrial statisticians and engineers specializing in efficient design of experiments via statistical methods, the wind tunnel environment offers unique challenges for determining a bestpractices approach to test design. Both variants of practitioners have realized the benefit of adapting classical statistically-based experimental design techniques to wind tunnel testing. With this general approach to test, the number of tests required is significantly reduced, the true underlying cause/effect relationship between aircraft configuration and aerodynamic performance is realized and uncertainty can be precisely determined in the presence of testing condition alterations. This paper makes use of case studies to discuss and illustrate the conditions common in low-speed wind tunnel testing which require adaptations to standard experimental design application. Remedies for each of these conditions based on methods successfully used elsewhere are provided.