An experimental comparison of two adaptation strategies in an adaptive-walls wind-tunnel

In the present work an experimental comparison is made between two adaptation strategies: the Judd's method and the Everhart's method. A NACA 0012 airfoil has been tested at Mach numbers up to 0.4: models with chords up to 200 mm have been tested in a 200 mm × 200 mm test section. The two strategies, though based on different theoretical approaches, show a fairly good agreement as far as c _p distribution on the model, lift and drag curves and residual interference are concerned and agree, in terms of lift curve slope and drag coefficient at zero lift, with the McCroskey correlation.A version of this paper was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Torino, Italy, July 4–8, 1994.This work has been supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific and Technological Research (MURST 60%).