Wing Designs

Pitching flat-plate model

A new wing test model was designed and manufactured to perform dynamic pitching about its midchord, as shown in the gifs above. This mechanism consists of two vertical rods. Pitching actuation is accomplished by fixing the vertical height of the leading control rod and varying the vertical height of the trailing control rod, resulting in a pitch axis located at the wing’s midchord. As the trailing control rod moves vertically, the trailing control rod shoulder screw moves across the slot in the slider mechanism driving it to rotate about the bottom end of the forward control rod. An ATI Mini-40 force sensor is mounted in line with the pivot point of the slider mechanism. The wing is connected to the sensor vue the Sensor-wing mount. A splitter plate is used to isolate the wing from the flow disturbances caused by the rest of the structure. A glass wing to minimize laser shadows during PIV acquisition.

The horizontal slider,sensor housing, and sensor-wing mount were 3D printed out of Nylon using an SLS Form Fuse 3D printer. 3D printing these parts made them cheaper, quicker to prototype, and easier to manufacture. The glass wing was permentanly glued to the sensor-wing mount using quick setting epoxy.The splitter plate was water jet out of 1/8" thick stainless-steel plate and sprayed painted matte black to minimze reflections udirng PIV acquisition.

3D printed NACA0012 wing