Exploratory Wind Tunnel Gust Alleviation Tests of a Multiple-Flap Flexible Wing

An active flexible 85" span wing of aspect ratio 8.36 with six independently actuated trailing edges flaps, spanning the trailing edge from root to tip was developed for the University of Washington’s Kirsten Wind Tunnel. Together with a system of gust generation vanes at the entrance to the tunnel’s test section, the combined wing / gust generation system makes it possible to test a variety of gust alleviation control laws, including the effect of using preview information about upcoming gust excitation of the wing as well as variable camber continuous trailing edge flap actuation. The paper describes a major redesign of the sensing / actuation / control of the wing and some exploratory input / output test results and their correlation with analysis-based state space math models of the combined gust vanes / wing system. An example of a prototype gust alleviation control law design and its performance in analysis and in tests is also presented.