Proposal of a Method of Aerodynamic Force Measurement of Aircraft Model without Using Force Sensors in Wind Tunnel Testing

Abstract

Recently, the use of unmanned air vehicles (UAV) at disaster sites has increased, and research and development has been active. Since these vehicles fly at low Reynolds number, they have different aerodynamic characteristic from conventional aircraft. Therefore, it is expected that research as flight test, wind tunnel tests and CFD will be accelerated in order to improve aerodynamic performance in this area. This research focused on Hand Launch Glider with high performance in the Re=104 regions. This paper proposes a new aerodynamic force measurement method based on positional measurements suitable for wind tunnel tests on a full-scale model of a Hand Launch Glider. Validation and experimentation of this method were conducted by measuring the lift and drag forces generated on the aircraft every A.O.A. and comparing the results of Koike et al. The results show that although the accuracy of the model's weight measurement has a significant effect on the aerodynamic force measurement, the validity of the new aerodynamic force measurement method based on positional measurements was considered. The proposed new aerodynamic force measurement method is available for evaluating the aerodynamic characteristics of slender fuselage airframes which cannot be inserted force sensors, or small loads that make it preciously difficult to measure aerodynamic forces with sensors, like the Hand Launch Glider.