S. Dequand, A. Geeraert, G. Mortchelewicz
DOI Number: N/A
Conference number: IFASD-2019-149
Aircrafts can be designed with different aft body configurations and all kinds of empennages exist. This paper focuses on the aeroelastic behavior of intersecting surfaces typically arising on aircraft tail, such as U-tail. It presents aerodynamic and flutter correlations between experimental and numerical results, in subsonic and transonic domains for a wind tunnel model representative of such aircraft tail. The aim is to evaluate the ability of our high-fidelity numerical tools to reproduce complex aerodynamic phenomena due to flow interactions between the different airfoil surfaces and to predict the sensitivity of the aeroelastic stability to the geometric parameters (dihedral, yaw angle). Steady and unsteady pressure coefficients along different slices of the airfoil surfaces have been measured and are compared to numerically predicted pressure coefficients. Results obtained at different aerodynamic conditions provide a good insight of the effect of flow interactions between the intersecting airfoil surfaces. The aeroelastic stability of the flutter model is also investigated and allows the assessment of different numerical approaches by comparing their ability to predict flutter mechanisms.