Experimental Investigations on Aerodynamic Response of Panel Structures at High Subsonic and Low Supersonic Mach Numbers.

The phenomenon panel flutter is known since the mid 1940’s. Intense investigations in experiment and theory followed in the 60’s and 70’s. The developed theories are capable of describing panel flutter in the subsonic and high supersonic Mach number domain but are insufficient in the transonic domain. In the recent years new Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) methods by means of coupled CFD and FE calculations have shown more accurate results in that Mach number domain. Within a common project of the Airbus Company and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) the described computational approach is used on the theoretical side. Experiments were performed in 2015 and 2017 to gain data for validation. The wind tunnel experiments were conducted by means of a forced motion experiment in a Mach number range of 0.7Mach number and the total pressure (Reynolds Number). Beside the measurement of the panel deformation by a stereo camera marker tracking system, the flow response is measured by high sensitive miniature pressure transducers.