Experimental Evaluation of the ASWING Aeroelastic Framework: Structure Model

This article presents the experimental validation of ASWING, an aeroelastic software for the preliminary design of highly flexible aircraft. This paper focuses on the structural model. The first section briefly recalls the model and its features. Next, the paper provides the numerical scheme’s convergence and runtime for static aeroelastic analyses. Experimental validations are then introduced, including cases involving large tip deflections in helicopter blades and moderate- to low-aspect-ratio wings, chosen to highlight both stiffness coupling and aspect-ratio limitations. The modal responses of each case are compared with experimental data from the literature. The article also assesses the impact of concentrated masses, such as nacelles or tanks, analyzing the effects of their position along the chord and span on a wing’s modal response. Validation cases related to joined wings and the influence of joints on structural response are also presented. Finally, the paper discusses ASWING’s capacity to predict buckling and notes that it shows good agreement with experiments for all test cases. Discrepancies are extensively discussed, and predictions are delivered in less than 0.1 s for deflection and 2.0 s for modal responses on modern laptops.