Flutter Characteristics of Winged Vehicle in Free-Flight/Launching Configuration and Development of Model Supporting Systems.

A winged space reentry vehicle is under development in Japan. The vehicle will be launched atop of a rocket and fly back to the Earth. Flutter characteristics of this vehicle should be considered differently between launching and free-flight. Two kinds of supporting system were newly developed to put each configuration into practice for wind tunnel tests. They possess a function to control flutter during the tests. Flutter experiments were conducted by using these supporting systems in TWT. As the results, the anticipated flutter occurred under each configuration and the effectiveness of the supporting system has been demonstrated. Moreover, the flutter characteristics could be explained clearly by the numerical analyses with the non-planar DPM (Doublet-Point Method).