Transonic buffet alleviation on 3D wings: wind tunnel tests and closed-loop control investigations

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The presented paper gives an overview of several projects addressing the experimental characterization and control of the buffet phenomenon on 3D turbulent wings in transonic flow conditions. This aerodynamic instability induces strong wall pressure fluctuations and therefore limits flight domain. Consequently, to enlarge the latter but also to provide more flexibility during the design phase, it is interesting to try to delay the buffet onset. This paper summarizes the main investigations leading to the achievement of open and closed-loop buffet control and its experimental demonstration. Several wind tunnel tests campaigns, performed on a 3D half wing/fuselage body, enabled to characterize the buffet aerodynamic instability and to study the efficiency of innovative fluidic control devices designed and manufactured by ONERA. The analysis of the open-loop databases demonstrated the effects on the usual buffet characteristics, especially on the shock location and the separation areas on the wing suction side. Using these results, a closed-loop control methodology based on a quasi-steady approach was defined and several architectures were tested for various parameters such as the input signal, the objective function, the tuning of the feedback gain. All closed-loop methods were implemented on a dSPACE device able to estimate in real time the fluidic actuators command calculated mainly from the unsteady pressure sensors data. The efficiency of delaying the buffet onset or limiting its effects was demonstrated using the quasi-steady closed-loop approach and tested in both research and industrial wind tunnel environments.