ONERA?s teams have achieved an active gust load control demonstration in the S3Ch transonic wind tunnel in Meudon. This is the result of years of work within the context of the European project Clean Sky JTI Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft.""
A veritable first in Europe in the transonic field, the recent closed-loop control tests are an important step in the demonstration of gust load alleviation: alleviations on the order of 70% were achieved for the response level of the model’s first aeroelastic mode.
This work opens up new perspectives for future aircraft design: lighter, safer, more efficient and less polluting. Within its scientific departments, ONERA brings together all of the skills and resources necessary for these advances.
The experimental device (made with the company Aviation Design) consists of an aeroelastic model (at the front) and a gust generator (at the back). The arrow shows the propagation of the gust. The effect of gust fields on the aerodynamic and aeroelastic behaviour of the model was analysed and the experimental data was delivered to ONERA’s main partners (Airbus and Dassault Aviation) for the validation of their numerical methods.
Control results for Mach = 0.3 and 0.73 on accelerometer responses for a broadband gust disturbance
Gust response control tests (movements are slowed down 10 times).
Flow at Mach = 0.73, or a speed of almost 900 km/h.
