Spanwise measurements of vertical components of atmospheric turbulence

Abstract

Correlation and spectrum magnitude estimates are computed for vertical gust velocity measurements at the nose and wing tips of a NASA B-57B aircraft for six level flight, low speed and low altitude runs and are compared with those of the von Karman atmospheric turbulence model extended for spanwise relationships. The distance between the wing tips was 62.6 ft. Airspeeds ranged from about 330 to 400 ft/sec, heights above the ground ranged from near ground level to about 5250 ft. and gust velocity standard deviations ranged from 4.10 to 8.86 ft/sec. Integral scale lengths, determined by matching measured autocorrelation estimates with those of the model, ranged from 410 to 2050 ft. Digital signals derived from piezoelectric sensors provided continuous pressure and airspeed measurements. Some directional acceleration sensitivity of the sensors was eliminated by sensor orientation, and their performance was spectrally verified for the higher frequencies with supplemental onboard piezoresistive sensors. The model appeared to satisfactorily predict the trends of the measured cross-correlations and cross-spectrum magnitudes, particularly between the nose and wing tips. However, the measured magnitude estimates of the cross-spectra between the wing tips exceeded the predicted levels at the higher frequencies. Causes for the additional power across the wing tips were investigated. Vertical gust velocity components evaluated along and lateral to the flight path implied that the frozen-turbulence-field assumption is a suitable approximation