Signal processing and analysis in a buffet onset wind tunnel campaign

Abstract

The purpose of the current work is to determine the buffet onset boundary in the case of an airliner type of wind tunnel model having a presumably laminar wing. A complex wind tunnel campaign took place, providing an important amount of data from a variety of sensors: steady and non-steady pressure sensors, strain gauges and accelerometer. The last two types of sensors are useful for buffeting investigation, which is the structural vibration and are considered to provide global indications. Pressure signals are providing local indications and also global when properly integrated in global indices. The paper shows the difficulties encountered in using global indicators, which fail to identify the buffeting and the delicate analysis of pressure signals and their qualitative analysis, which provide a good insight into the phenomena and are clearly indicating the buffet onset boundary, with the proper extrapolation.

Keywords

• buffet onset
• wind tunnel
• signal analysis