Water Tunnel Flow Visualization Studies of a Canard-Configured X-31A-Like FighterAircraft Model

摘要

A water tunnel flow visualization investigation was performed to study the vortexbursting phenomena on a 2.3% scale model of a X-31A-like fighter aircraft. The main focus of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine the optimum canard location that produces favorable aerodynamic interference on the main wing and (2) to determine the effect of pitch rate on the optimum-configured model during simple pitch-up and simple pitch-down maneuvers. It was found that a close-coupled canard configuration resulted in a more favorable interference between the vortex systems of the canard and the wing. The dynamic tests indicated that the location of the wing root vortex burst point relative to the static case moved downstream with increasing pitch rate.