Airfield performance and related wing configuration effects for a supersonic business jet (SSBJ) have been tested in the Emmen, Switzerland based-RUAG Aerospace low-speed windtunnel.
The tests were part of the European Union's five-year, €26 million ($38.5 million) environmentally friendly high-speed aircraft (HISAC) research project. An SSBJ model with low boom characteristics and high bypass-ratio engines was tested in the 5m by 7m (16.4ft by 23ft) tunnel.
The tests were intended to correlate the best performing flap and slat settings with computational fluid dynamics predictions. Oil-flow visualisation was also performed over about 90 runs conducted during 40h of testing.
"These tests allowed us to demonstrate good low-speed aerodynamic behaviour of an SSBJ, which matches the specifications set by the HISAC consortium at the beginning of the project and which is also highly constrained by environmental specifications," says the consortium.
The test campaign investigated maximum lift performance at landing lift-to-drag ratio at take-off comparison of slotted and plain flaps canard effects on longitudinal trim aileron and elevon effectiveness and slat and flap settings to optimise landing and take-off configurations.
In June 2007 the first HISAC high-speed windtunnel test campaign took place at French aerospace agency ONERA's S2 facility in Modane. It examined wing leading-edge camber optimisation for transonic lift and the impact of control surface and engine integration options on drag. The next test campaign will take at HiSAC project partner Sukhoi. This will examine the SSBJ's transonic and supersonic performance up to Mach 1.4 and its high-speed shaping.
Source: Flight International
