Examining potential reductions in wind tunnel testing requirements: Reducing Wind Tunnel Testing

Wind tunnel test campaigns involve a large number of experimental data points, can take a long time to accomplish, and can consume tremendous resources. Design of experiments is a systematic approach to experimental design and analysis that has the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of wind tunnel testing. We use a legacy wind tunnel test campaign and compare the resulting data from that campaign to data generated using smaller experimental design strategies. The comparison is accomplished using a Monte Carlo sampling methodology coupled with a statistical comparison of the estimated surfaces. Initial results from a 2-phase experiment suggest a tremendous opportunity to reduce wind tunnel test efforts without losing test information and provide suggestions on the types of designs to use to best realize the test matrix reductions.