Model Deformation Measurement Capabilities at ETW

Abstract

The European Transonic Windtunnel (ETW) is Europe’s unique testing facility for high Reynolds number testing, enabling the aircraft manufacturers to test their designs at real flight Reynolds and Mach numbers under defined aeroelastic conditions. ETW’s extraordinary capability of clear Reynolds number, Mach number and aeroelastic effect separation allows optimized test envelopes covering the investigation of all three effects. During high Reynolds number testing the model deformation plays a major role, not only to analyse the pure aeroelastic effects, but also to know the model shape for aerodynamic analysis. Therefore, knowing the model geometry at each test condition is as important as measuring the exact tunnel conditions and the angle of incidence of the model. Only the combination of all data allows the corrections and analysis to be made in order to transfer the wind tunnel data to real aircraft applications.