Experimental Validation of the Wing-Aileron-Tab Combination Applied to an Actively Controlled Bridge Section Model

In this work we investigate the applicability of the wing-aileron-tab model for a bridge section model being actively controlled with leading and trailing edge flaps. The structural and aerodynamic model parameters have been extracted experimentally from a total of 140 wind tunnel experiments. Our in-house developed set-up has been employed for this purpose. Four different control strategies, with increasing complexity have been used for the parameter estimation. The first eight flutter derivatives have been obtained from step responses performed without control. The modified versions of these flutter derivatives have been estimated from step responses performed with three different types of active flap control, from which the leading edge and trailing edge flutter derivatives have been derived. The presented results are encouraging, however, further investigation is necessary in order to fully evaluate the wing-aileron-tab model’s applicability.