Dynamic Stability Analysis of a Propeller-wing Wind Tunnel Model

The research project “Bürgernahes Flugzeug” deals with the configuration of a future airplane with the properties of short take-off and landing and with reduced noise from the acoustic aspect. These properties should permit flight from a smaller airport closer to a city. In this project, under the cooperation of the main research partners: University of Braunschweig, German Aerospace Center (DLR) and University of Hannover, a wind tunnel model for the mainly aerodynamic and acoustic investigations was designed [1],[2],[3]. This Wind tunnel model, as it can be seen in Fig.1, consists of two main subsystems: Wing and Propeller-Nacelle. In 2012, this model will be utilized in low speed German-Dutch wind tunnel (DNW-NWB) in Braunschweig for different research activities and measurements. Occurrence of any kind of dynamic instability during the wind tunnel test will cause lots of cost and loss of time. Even it is possible to have the situation that the model is stable and no dynamic instability occurs but the oscillation of the model is not desirable. An undesirable oscillation of the model would have cross effects on the aerodynamics and acoustics of the model and therefore would have effect on measurements. To prevent all the well known dynamic problems during the wind tunnel test, performing dynamic stability analysis in both design stage and after the construction the model is an inevitable task. This paper gives a review of aeroelastic analysis of the designed wind tunnel model under the predefined wind tunnel test