Structural and aeroelastic characteristics of wing model for transonic flutter wind tunnel test fabricated by additive manufacturing with AlSi10Mg alloys

Abstract

In this paper, the potentials of wing models fabricated by metal additive manufacturing for transonic flutter wind tunnel testing are investigated. The additive manufacturing technique would be a tool for the fast production of wind tunnel models at low cost and enable multiple experiments with various wing designs while precisely realizing designed geometries and structural properties for aeroelastic evaluations. The novelties in this paper are: 1) a concept of the transonic flutter wing model, which can be used to investigate phenomena involving transonic aeroelastic instabilities in transonic flutter wind tunnel testing, fabricated with the AM technique for cost-effective manufacturing and extension of design freedom, and 2) its design and manufacturing methodology combining the AM technique and post machining treatments. As a proof-of-concept study, this paper mainly investigates the feasibility of a transonic flutter wing model fabricated by the proposed methodology based on the AM technique and post-processing, which realizes not only aerodynamic shapes but also designed elastic and modal characteristics, to evaluate typical transonic aeroelastic responses such as the LCO and the transonic dip. The geometrical accuracy of additively manufactured wing models is firstly accessed. Structural/aeroelastic characteristics of an additively manufactured wing model for wind tunnel testing are then evaluated numerically and experimentally. Finally, the aeroelastic characteristics of the fabricated flutter wing model are also investigated by performing a transonic flutter wind tunnel experiment. Through a series of evaluations, the feasibility and capability of such AM-based transonic flutter wing models for transonic wind tunnel testing are demonstrated.