Wind Tunnel Aerodynamic Study of a VTOL-UAV for Wide Range of Angles of Attack and Sideslip Angles
- PDF / 3,438,554 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 142 Views
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Wind Tunnel Aerodynamic Study of a VTOL‑UAV for Wide Range of Angles of Attack and Sideslip Angles (EMERGENTIa project) Victoria M. Prieto1 · Sergio Esteban1 Received: 25 September 2020 / Revised: 31 October 2020 / Accepted: 16 November 2020 © AIDAA Associazione Italiana di Aeronautica e Astronautica 2020
Abstract This article presents the design, manufacturing and wind tunnel tests conducted on a 1:4 scaled Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A brief description of the VTOL model, identifying characteristic dimensions, along with the manufacturing process for the scale model and the measurement equipment is presented. Results of the wind tunnel experiments are conducted varying both angle of attack and sideslip angle for a wide rage of the angles, and several wind tunnel speeds, thus allowing to characterize the full flight envelope for all three flight phases of the VTOL-UAV: axial, transition and cruise flight phases. A description of the wind tunnel measuring setup and the methodology used is presented, along with the subsequent analysis and corrections considered for all the data obtained, presenting a discussion about the results and its comparison with numerical analysis obtained with CFD studies. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are made with the main objective of establishing a basis for future tests. Keywords Wind tunnel experiments · Angle of attack · Sideslip angle · Solid blockage · Complete flight envelop · CFD
1 Introduction This article presents wind tunnel experiments conducted on a convertible Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Convertible Plane (CP) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to characterize the entire full aerodynamic flight envelope. The motivation behind these experiments come from the need of having precise aerodynamic models that will serve as bench mark where to test the innovative design presented within the EMERGENTIA project. The EMERGENTIa project (acronym for the full title: DevElopment or fan unManned convERtible aircraft for rapid and efficient deployment in emerGENcy situaTIons) arises from the fact that emerging technologies are radically changing traditional operating * Victoria M. Prieto [email protected] Sergio Esteban [email protected] 1
Aerospace Engineering and Fluid Mechanics Department, Higher Technical School of Engineering, University of Seville, Seville, Spain
procedures in disaster relief and emergency response management. In particular, UAVs are proving themselves extremely useful in Search And Rescue (SAR) missions. They bring very advantageous capabilities such as rapid response, remote operation, transportation of equipment, monitoring of wide areas, and multi-sensor deployment (Fig. 1). Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIV) typically used in SAR missions have cargo space for at most one small Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) of either fixed or rotatory wing type. Fixed wing aircraft are well suited to rapid deployment and remote monitoring but require external means (runways or catapul
Data Loading...
