Exploratory flutter test in a cryogenic wind tunnel

The feasibility of flutter testing in cryogenic wind tunnels is investigated experimentally in tests on a rigid solid-metal rectangular-planform aspect-ratio-1.5 NACA 64A010 wing model with an integral flexible beam support, cantilever mounted to the wall of the 0.3-m transonic cryogenic tunnel at NASA Langley, at Mach numbers M = 0.5 and 0.8 and Reynolds numbers Re = (4.09-18.16) x 10 to the 6th. Best results are obtained when the onset of flutter (predicted by the peak-hold subcritical-response technique of Sandford et al., 1975) is approached by adjusting stagnation pressure while keeping M and the stagnation temperature constant. The data are presented in graphs and tables and discussed. It is found that Re effects on flutter cannot be separated from mass-ratio and temperature effects for a single test model and must be interpreted from analytical trends, and that the effects detected by this procedure are so small (4.0-6.5 percent) as to fall within the scatter band of the subcritical-response predictions.