TsAGI conducts research to improve flight safety
2 March 2018
One of the major causes of passenger aircraft disasters is control failure in the air. Scientists of the Zhukovsky Central AeroHydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI, a member of the National Research Center “Zhukovsky Institute”) carry out full-scale integrated studies to improve flight safety. One of the most important parts of this activity is the development of technologies for aerodynamic modeling and simulation at flight critical modes.
To test the new technology of flight research at high angles of attack, the Institute’s specialists carry out much work to define the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of Common Research Model (CRM).
For this purpose, scientists designed and produced a dynamic-scale aircraft model with remote tilt controls. Its geometry is that of a typical modern airliner. The newly created object will be tested in different wind tunnels. The first phase of tests took place in a small subsonic installation. Scientists studied its static aerodynamic characteristics, including aircraft management efficient in a wide range of angles of attack, and also measured the damping derivatives.
In the future the Institute will carry out experiments in a vertical wind tunnel. It is planned to have a detailed study of model aerodynamics, the development of its mathematical presentation in a wide range of angles of attack and sliding, as well as the angular velocity of conical rotation. Using the obtained mathematical model of aerodynamics, Institute scientists will calculate the different modes of a corkscrew spin and will develop methods for displaying how an airplane corrects it. There will also be a comparison of the results of calculations with experiments on free spins.