Static and Dynamic Characterization of a Swept Pazy Wing Through Wind Tunnel Testing

This study investigates the dynamic behavior of highly flexible swept wings as an extension of the Pazy Wing benchmark. The motivation behind this work is to investigate how the sweep angle affects static deformations, modal parameters, and flutter mechanism in highly flexible wings. Three wing models with sweep angles of 10$^\circ$, 20$^\circ$, and 30$^\circ$ are developed and tested in two wind tunnels, at Sapienza University of Rome and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), and their dynamic response is measured with unidirectional accelerometers. Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) is applied to estimate the modal parameters under various dynamic pressures and boundary conditions, while a low-fidelity nonlinear aeroelastic model was developed to support test planning and provide preliminary predictions. The results confirm that OMA is an effective technique for the characterization of flexible wing dynamics, identifying a clear dependence of the flutter mechanism on the sweep angle with the flutter margin increasing for larger sweep angles, and the instability no longer following the classical hump-mode behavior observed in the straight Pazy configuration. Tests conducted further highlights the sensitivity of the aeroelastic response to boundary and aerodynamic conditions.