An excitation model for a square prism with leading edge flaps in low turbulent flow

A new digital pressure scanning system has been developed and used to obtain pressure data on a 2D square prism with leading edge flaps. Experiments were performed with angles of attack between −5° and +5°. The component of pressure fluctuation that was caused by the motion of the leading edge flaps was extracted from the fluctuating pressures. It has been demonstrated that within this range of angles of attack, the pressure fluctuations due to the flap motion can be modelled as a function of the flap operating frequency, amplitude, and the angle of attack, and hence the overall load can be evaluated. The equivalent viscous damping ratio due to this flap-induced load was derived in order to benchmark the effectiveness of a leading edge flap system against existing solutions to structural vibrations.