Active control of three-surface aeroelastic model

The present paper describes research activities related to the Active Aeroelastic Aircraft Structures Project, fulfilled by Politecnico di Milano, dealing with the aeroelastic demonstrator named X-DIA. This aircraft is a one-tenth geometrically and dynamically scaled model of a regional transport airplane, and it has been built to become a wind-tunnel benchmark for experimenting with new aeroelastic concepts. All movable foreplane surfaces and wings with distributed multiple control surfaces are here installed to improve overall aeroelastic response and thus to improve airplane stability and even fuselage flight comfort. An identical location of accelerations and forces-based control system has been implemented: numerical and experimental results show a remarkable capability of this device in damping fuselage bending and torsion modes. The following pages will provide information about the research project, describing methodologies adopted and experiment results taken in wind-tunnel testing.