Wind tunnel investigations of aircraft airfoil in cruise conditions

Abstract Presented work is focused on analysis of the flow over the 2D model of Airbus A320 airfoil wing in cruise phase of the flight. For this purpose the measurement channel with an airfoil model was designed and assembled in a transonic wind tunnel to obtain a similar flow pattern as in the reference two-dimensional freestream flow. Experimental investigations were conducted in the IMP PAN transonic wind tunnel with a relative narrow test section which is a novel approach in terms of these type of research. The test section was designed using CFD simulations based on 2D freestream flow for the tested wing profile and in the next step the research were continued experimentally in transonic wind tunnel with a measurement chamber width of 100 mm. This paper presents the results of reference investigations on the A320 wing profile which combines experimental tests and CFD calculations. The obtained results show that the approach presented in the paper is appropriate and the obtained flow features in the tunnel do not differ much from the freestream conditions.