Beyond Aero said Monday that it completed its first wind tunnel test campaign as part of the preliminary design phase of its hydrogen-electric aircraft. The testing was conducted over five weeks late last year at the German-Dutch Wind Tunnels (DNW) Low-Speed Facility in Marknesse, Netherlands, and focused on evaluating aerodynamic performance, stability and control for an aircraft configuration that places gaseous hydrogen tanks outside the fuselage.
According to Beyond Aero, the tests were performed using a 1:8 scale model and produced more than 60,000 data points. The campaign evaluated multiple flap settings, control surface deflections and off-nominal conditions, including high angles of attack, sideslip and deep stall, at speeds of up to 80 meters per second. Data collection included measurements of aerodynamic forces and moments using a six-component balance, along with pressure data from more than 230 pressure taps distributed across the model, which the company said allowed for comparison with numerical simulations.
“The strong correlation between experimental results and numerical simulations, in the linear domain, gives us a solid validation of our numerical process,” Delphine Bonnaud, head of aerodynamics at Beyond Aero, said.
Luiz Oliveira, the company’s chief of engineering, said the wind tunnel campaign provided experimental data that supports the aircraft’s preliminary design review by serving as a reference for external aerodynamics.
