LAST EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS CONCERNING A SMART ACTUATOR FOR TRANSONIC WAVE DRAG REDUCTION

摘要

Performance improvement of a wing operating in transonic represents a strongly desired target. As a matter of fact, the benefits coming from an efficacious control of the transonic phenomenology may lead to both a remarkable cut on the flight costs and an increment of the comfort level. To this aim, many theoretical speculations were carried out and some partial results were reached in terms of aerodynamic drag reduction and buffeting control. However, the necessity of obtaining benefits for the transonic, without compromising other flight conditions, induced to consider an adaptive design strategy. According to this trend, the development and realisation of an adaptive device was dealt with by CIRA and other EREA Centres, inside the 'Smart Airfoil' project. In this paper, the structural design of this device, able to cause local geometry variations of the wing shape, is described. In particular, three different actuation strategies were discussed and some prototypes were realised to experimentally evaluate the benefits coming from this solution, which proved to be very convenient for wind tunnel tests and, in principle, applicable to real aircrafts.