A Linear Transformation for the Reconstruction of the Responses of Systems in Similitude

Recent years have seen an increasing interest towards similitude methods. In fact, the possibility of testing a scaled model, instead of a full-scale prototype, leads to many advantages: financial and time savings, easier experimental setups, etc. However, similitudes have drawbacks, too, mainly due to non-scalable effects and partial similitude, which prevent from an accurate reconstruction of the prototype response. For these reasons, an alternative method which can bypass these limitations is needed. A new method, called VOODOO (Versatile Offset Operator for the Discrete Observation of Objects), is herein proposed: it is based on the definition of a transformation matrix which links the outputs of a given linear systems to those belonging to another system, which may be a scaled model. The responses are acquired on a discrete number of points for both the systems. This work aims at investigating the method’s strengths and limitations of the method. The results show that, although VOODOO exhibits some lack of accuracy in off-design conditions due to the loss of spatial correlation, it is able to overcome some major restrictions that affect all similitude methods.