Unsteady Aerodynamics of Highly Flexible Wings in Gusts

Highly flexible wings may operate in unsteady gusts or in the wake of another aircraft. Formation flight, unmanned air vehicles in urban environment, highly flexible high aspect ratio wings in high altitude flight are some examples. When the aeroelastic effects are considered, this may cause increased deformation, buffeting and vibration, fluid-structure interaction, flow separation, leading-edge vortex formation, which all depend on the deformation modes and frequencies.
Wind tunnel experiments will be conducted for flexible wings to investigate these aspects. Flow visualization, force measurements and deformation measurements will be performed. Digital Image Correlation technique will be used to measure the mean and unsteady deformation of the wing during the gust interaction. Main variables are the gust properties, vertical position of the gust, and wing aeroelastic properties.