Aeroelasticity is the discipline that investigates the interaction among elastic, inertial and aerodynamic forces. It is of vital interest for all the industrial manufactures subject to the effect of these forces, such as buildings, bridges and first of all airplanes and helicopters. The interaction between these forces not only could impact in a significant way the vehicle performances but could also generate stability problems such as high amplitudes vibrations and flutter able to generate damages or in some cases the total loss of the involved structures.
During years of activity, GVPM wind tunnel has been equipped with dedicated equipment for aeroelastic tests, such as gust loads alleviation, and active flutter suppression tests. Both this kind of test are very important in the development of future more efficient aircraft characterized by very flexible structures prone to large deformation and potential aeroelastic instabilities.
