An investigation into internal and external force balance configurations for short duration wind tunnels

Abstract

An investigation of both an internal and an external stress wave force balance that measures forces and moments on a re-entry type configuration was undertaken. Simulations performed using a finite element code suggest superior recovery of the applied forces and moments with an external force balance configuration. This is hypothesized to be due to the increased balance stiffness and decoupling between force components that can be achieved with an external type configuration. The influence of an external force balance as compared to an internal force balance on the model loads was determined to be negligible. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.