Convergence of transonic wind tunnel test results of the AGARD-B standard model

Abstract

AGARD-B is a widely-used configuration of a standard wind tunnel model. Beside its originally intended application for correlation of data from supersonic wind tunnel facilities, it was tested in a wide range of Mach numbers and, more recently, used for assessment of wall interference effects, validation of computational fluid dynamics codes and validation of new model production technologies. The researchers and wind tunnel test engineers would, naturally, like to know the "true" aerodynamic characteristics of this model, for comparison with their own work. Obviously, such data do not exist, but an estimate can be made of the dispersion of test results from various sources and of the probable "mean" values of the aerodynamic coefficients. To this end, comparable transonic test results for the AGARD-B model at Mach numbers 0.77, Mach 1.0 and Mach 1.17 from six wind tunnels were analyzed and average values and dispersions of the aerodynamic coefficients were computed.