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Quality Assessment for Wind Tunnel Testing

Wind tunnel data are often presented without reference to the quality of the results. When data
uncertainty is considered, it is normally in the form of repeatability from a few supposedly identical
tests. Only rarely are estimates of uncertainty based on professional calibrations of facilities and
instrumentation, a thorough review of the process producing the data, and comprehensive accounting
of significant biases inherent in the experiment.

The development of new and modified aircraft is frequently compromised by inadequate
consideration of experimental error. References 1.1 through 1.4 are some of the AGARD publications
that have reported important problems over the past 20 years. An AGARD Symposium in 19 8 7 (Ref.
1.5) entitled “Aerodynamic Data Accuracy and Quality: Requirements and Capabilities in Wind Tunnel
Testing” highlighted continuing problems. Two important improvements in data quality assessment
practices are clearly needed. The first is to adopt a consistent approach for integrating uncertainty
analyses into all phases of a test. The second is to provide a complete professional analysis and
documentation of uncertainty for each test. This report describes an engineering approach to wind
tunnel data quality assessment that can alleviate many of the problems documented in Ref. 1.5. The
method developed in this report is general. Aircraft aerodynamic testing was selected as a specific
example application to provide a focus for describing and applying the method.