Design of high-speed moving belt device for ground effect simulation in aviation wind tunnel

It is of great significance to study the ground effect of aircraft during its operation. Due to the existence of viscous boundary layer, the wind tunnel simulation test by fixed floor simulation technology widely used in China is seriously inconsistent with the real situation. Therefore, a high-speed moving belt simulation device with large scale of 4 m × 3.4 m was developed. Driven by a single motor, the master and slave rolls drived the moving belt to make its upper surface linear velocity consistent with the wind tunnel flow velocity, which eliminated the boundary layer to accurately simulate the ground effect. The segmented machining method of the master and slave rolls with large length-diameter ratio was proposed, and the connection between the outer cylinder and the mandrel was realized by the interference assembly connection, which avoided the thermal deformation caused by conventional welding method, and significantly reduced the unbalance of the moving belt under high-speed operation. The fast servo correction system was designed to keep the offset of the moving belt within 5 mm. Combined with the distributed control system, the stable operation of each system of the moving belt device was realized. In the ground test, the linear speed of the moving belt could be stabilized at about 54 m/s with a speed error of about 0.25%, and the overall vibration of the moving belt was inhibited at about 0.1 mm. The moving belt device developed becomes one of the largest ground effect simulation equipment in China and has broad application prospects in wind tunnel ground effect simulation and testing.