Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry Flowfield Investigation of an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle

Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been applied in an integrated design for the experimental investigation of a static and dynamic flowfield on an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) model. Within the scope of RTO-AVT 161 the stability and control configuration (SACCON) model is used for analyzing synergistic design criteria and to reduce the timescale of the design phase by integrating computational and experimental analyses early by ONERA (the French Aerospace Lab) and DLR (German Aerospace Center). The ONERA PIV results focused on the forward part of the UCAV, and the DLR PIV results focused on the aft flowfield, as well as dynamic PIV measurements at a pitching model. The combined measurements enable the visualization and quantification of the flowfield in several planes over the whole length of the model. This paper describes the results of the forward and the aft flowfields. The flow topology is described for the static cse in dependency of the angle of attack. The results of the dynamic measurement highlight differences in the flowfields at two pitching cases of different pitch amplitudes as a function of the phase angle. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]