WIND TUNNEL MEASUREMENTS OF PRESSURE FLUCTUATIONS AND STRUCTURAL RESPONSE INDUCED BY THE TURBULENT BOUNDARY LAYER AT HIGH MACH NUMBER, PART 2: COMPARISONS BETWEEN EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL DATA FOR THE STRUCTURAL RESPONSE

Measurements of the acceleration response of typical homogeneous and composite aeronautical panels with different lay-up to turbulent boundary layer excitation have been performed in a transonic wind tunnel for Mach number values ranging between 0.4 and 0.9. Artificial boundary layers of different thickness have been generated using the setup described in PART 1. Aim of this experimental campaign was the understanding of the influence of different materials and geometrical properties on the response of aeronautical panels to random convective loads as a starting point for a following acoustical optimization. Numerical simulations of the panel response have been performed by FEM and in house codes using, as a forcing function, the modeled pressure field and have been validated by comparisons with measured acceleration data. The numerical determination of the structural response is also fundamental to understand how and when the theoretical models developed for the representation of wall pressure fluctuation spectra can be considered predictive thus, independent on the particular flow conditions.