Water Tunnel Flow Visualization Studies of a Canard-Configured X-31A- Like Fighter Aircraft Model

Abstract

A water tunnel flow visualization investigation was performed to study the vortex bursting phenomena on a 2.3% scale model of a X-31A-like fighter aircraft. The main focus of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine the optimum canard location that produces favorable aerodynamic interference on the main wing and (2) to determine the effect of pitch rate on the optimum- configured model during simple pitch-up and simple pitch-down maneuvers. It was found that a close-coupled canard configuration resulted in a more favorable interference between the vortex systems of the canard and the wing. The dynamic tests indicated that the location of the wing root vortex burst point relative to the static case moved downstream with increasing pitch rate.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1990
Accession Number
ADA241362

Entities

People

  • Hui M. Kwon

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerodynamic Characteristics
  • Aerodynamic Configurations
  • Aeronautics
  • Aircraft Models
  • Aircrafts
  • Cameras
  • Canard Configurations
  • Data Acquisition
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Flow
  • Flow Fields
  • Flow Visualization
  • Photographs
  • Photography
  • Scale Models
  • Simulations
  • Water Tunnels

Readers

  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.