WIND TUNNEL INVESTIGATION OF GRID FINNED MISSILE

CONFIGURATION OVER PLANAR CONTROL SURFACES

K.Sivaprakaash**, K. M. Parammasivam*.
**Research Scholar - Dept of Aerospace Engineering, Madras Institute of Technology
Campus, Anna University, Chennai. INDIA.
*Senior Lecturer - Dept of Aerospace Engineering, Madras Institute of Technology
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Campus, Anna University, Chennai. INDIA.

ABSTRACT
The present work deals with the investigation of aerodynamic forces on
grid finned missile configuration over the conventional planar fins. The work is done in
this area to provide some further insight reasons why the use of grid fins would be
advantageous over more conventional control surfaces. Grid fins usually produce much
higher lifting forces and pitching moments to overcome the drag they create. The work
involves experimental analysis using wind tunnel testing and comparing the results for
both the fin configuration. The dimensions of the missile body configurations are same
with only the fin configurations being different. This allows for one – to –one comparison
of the data to isolate the effects of fin geometry. The experimental work has been
performed using the low speed wind tunnel of Department of Aerospace Engineering,
MIT-AU. The tunnel is having a rectangular test section of 3ft height, 4ft width and 6 ft
length. The models have been tested in the Reynolds number range of Re = 4.79 x 105 to
1.3 x 106 for different angle of attack ranging from –15 to +15. Free stream pressure of
the test section is 1 bar and the blockage area was kept less than 5%. The force
measurements were taken using a six-component internal strain gauge balance
associated with a 20-channel data acquisition system (VISHAY 5100 B Scanner). The
force and aerodynamic coefficients obtained were plotted and the results were reported.

Key Words: Missile Configuration, Wind tunnel, planar fins, Grid fins, Force
coefficients, Moment coefficients.

NOMENCLATURE
d - Missile base diameter in mm
L - Total length of the body in mm
P - Pressure in N/m2
q - Free stream dynamic pressure in N/m2
t - Thickness of the web of a grid fin in mm
u, v, w - Velocity component in X, Y, Z direction
- Angle of attack
- Density
- Kinematic viscosity

1 Introduction:
Lattice fins (grid fins) have been studied for flight vehicle controls for several
years. Aerodynamics of such grid fins has been investigated since 1985. A lattice fin is an
unconventional control surface comprising an outer frame supporting an inner grid of

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 intersecting planar surfaces of small chord. Grid fins have been employed on some Soviet
missiles but have not been include on any missile systems. Interest in grid fins is
primarily geared towards their potential use on highly maneuverable munitions due to
their advantages over conventional planar controls at high angles of attack and high Mach
numbers. This fin design offers favorable lift characteristics and almost zero hinge
moments allowing the use of small and light actuators.
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Previous investigations that have been performed on grid fins shows that grid fins
have some advantages over conventional, planar fins. One advantage is the ability to
maintain lift at higher angles of attack since grid fins do not have the same stall
characteristics of planar fins. Another is the very small hinge moments, which can reduce
the size of control actuator systems. Curvature of the grid fins had little effect on their
performance so that folding the fins down onto the missile body is a storage design
advantage. The main disadvantage was indicated to be higher drag than that of planar
fins, although some techniques for minimizing drag by altering the grid fin frame cross-
section shape were demonstrated.

2.0 Experimental Work:

2.1 Description of the model:

The missile body was kept common for both types of fins. The body has been
fabricated with teak wood. The planar fin is made wit h the wood and the grid fin
configuration was fabricated using metal sheets of one mm thickness. The body has a
base diameter of 70mm and a total length of 7.2d. it consists of tangent ogive nose
attached to the cylindrical body. The model is composed of 3 modulus one for the nose
section, one for the mid section and finally one for the tail section of the model.

2.2 Fin geometry:

The grid fin geometry has been fabricated using metal plates of 1mm thickness.
The surface was coated with zinc plating to obtain smooth finish. The planar fins were
fabricated using wood. The surface was well polished to achieve the smoothness. The fin
configurations with dimensions are shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1 Dimensions of the fin configurations

2.2Wind tunnel:
The Wind tunnel used for experimental work was the low speed tunnel of
MIT-AU. This is of suction type where the air is drawn in the front directly from the
atmosphere and exhausted directly to the atmosphere. The photograph of the tunnel is
shown in the figure. The tunnel is 20m long and has a rectangular test section sandwiched
between the inlet duct and the diffuser. The test section has a cross section of 0.9m *
1.22m and a length of 1.82m with transparent windows on either side. The maximum
speed of the tunnel is 89 m/s the tunnel is fitted with three bladed propellers driven by
170 HP induction motor. The motor can control the propeller speed with microprocessor
based electronic speed control unit whose least count is 1rpm. The tunnel is equipped
with two-channel hot wire anemometer for velocity measurements and five-component
strain gauge internal balance for force measurements. Low speed wind tunnel used for the
present work is given in Figure 2

Fig2 Low Speed Wind tunnel

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 2.3 Instrumentation:
Wind tunnel is equipped with six component strain gauge internal balance for the
force measurement. The outputs from strain gauge leads are connected to the data
acquisition system with a computer interface. The micro strains developed on the model
are realized as voltage and are converted into forces by means of standard calibration
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factor. Figure 3 shows the balance mounted inside the model.

The data has been realized using the four strain gauges arranged in a coupled way
and those strain gauges are connected to a full bridge circuit and the data from the strain
gauges were transferred to the strain indicator using suitable wires connected with a D9
connector pin. The strain indicator has 20 channels from which the readings of the
balance can be obtained simultaneously from each channel.
Strain gauge balance was mounted inside the model using a suitable mounting
unit using the groove provided on the base of the missile body. Using a cotter pin, which
connects the strain gauge balance and the mounting unit, arrested the rolling motion of
the strain gauge balance. The strain gauge balance was mounted inside the model in such
a way that the axis of the model and the strain gauge balance axis align in a straight line.

Figure 3. Strain gauge balance mounted inside the model.

3.0 Test Conditions:

Experiments have been conducted on Planar and grid finned missile
configuration using the wind tunnel. The tunnel was calibrated before testing the models.
The static pressure head was measured using the Pitot tube. The velocity of the flow has
been increased gradually and the readings were taken using the Six-component strain
gauge balance. The tunnel was run at 300 rpm for all angles of attack for the Gird Finned
configuration and the readings were recorded in the Computer associated with the
balance. The experiments were conducted at zero angle of attack the angles have been
changed by the suitable mounting unit which has provisions to fix the models at positive
and negative angles of attack and care was taken that the flow induced vibrations if any
are not transmitted to the test section of the wind tunnel through the mounting
mechanism. The values obtained are manipulated to get the required aerodynamic
coefficients. This was repeated for the other speeds and other model. The graphs were
plotted with the results obtained from the experiments

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Figure 4 Model mounted inside the test section

4.0 Results and Discussion:
4.1 Aerodynamic Coefficients:
In viscous and pressure forces from the computed flow fields were integrated
along the missile body and fin surfaces to calculate the aerodynamic coefficients. The
axial force, normal force, side force, is presented on the missile-based coordinates and the
force values have been correlated to the moments using the planform area and the
dynamic pressure. This is a left handed system with the x-axis coinciding with the missile
axis and oriented to the rear, the y-axis oriented towards upward, and the z-axis oriented
to the missile’s starboard side. Resulted aerodynamic coefficients are discussed as
follows.
4.2 Normal force:
0.5 0.7

0.4
0.5
0.3
CY
CY

0.2 0.3

0.1
0.1
0
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 -15 -10 -5
-0.1 -0.1 0 5 10 15

-0.2
Angle of attack 38ofm/s
Angle attack
-0.3
-0.3 14 m/s 31 m/s
21 m/s
-0.4 -0.5 21 m/s
31 m/s
-0.5
38 m/s -0.7 14 m/s

Fig 5. Normal Force (Planar fin) Fig 6. Normal force (Grid fin)

First of the results is covering the normal force data generated by the fins. As
expected the normal force coefficient increases as the angle of attack increases, for both
models. The over all design philosophy behind these two models was for the grid fin
model to impact an identical level of longitudinal stability as conventional planar fin. It
can be emphasized from the graphs plotted that the grid fins shows identical incremental
normal force slopes than the planar fin.

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 4.3 Axial force:
0.5 14 m/s
1
0.9
14 m/s 0.45
21 m/s
0.8 21 m/s 0.4
31 m/s
0.35
0.7
31 m/s 38 m/s

CX

Cx
0.6 0.3
38 m/s 0.25
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0.5
0.4 0.2
0.3 0.15
0.2 0.1
0.1 0.05
0 0
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
Angle of attack Angle of attack

Fig 7. Axial force (Planar fin) Fig 8 Axial force (Grid fin)

The figure shows the axial force coefficient in terms of the body angle of
incidence for the grid fin and planer pin models. From the above curves it can be seen
that at -5 to +5. The axial force value has a decrease for planer fin case and the amount of
reduction is lesser in the grid fin case. At large angles of attack the axial force is greater
for both the fin cases. The increase in axial force is generated by the addition of various
components (webs, grid fins) is obvious from this figure. One possible explanation is that
the grid fins on the lee word side of the model starts chocking because of its position on
the model and its design, thus generating a larger axial force than a completely functional
planar fin.
4.4 Side force & Rolling force :
1 0.5

0.8 0.4

0.6 0.3
Cz

Cl

0.4 0.2

0.2 0.1

0 0
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
-0.2
Angle of attack -0.1
Angle of attack
-0.4 14 m/s -0.2 14 m/s
-0.6 21 m/s -0.3 21 m/s
-0.8 31 m/s -0.4 31 m/s
-1 38 m/s -0.5 38 m/s

Fig 9. Side force (Planar fin) Fig 10. Rolling force (Grid fin)
Above plot shows the computed side force data and rolling force data for both the
planar and grid finned configuration at different angles of attack. There was a little
difference in the side force due to the fin type at all angles of attack. The maximum side
force seems to be not so large and hence it can be stated that the lateral stability of the
missiles seems to be good and at grid fin configuration there seems to be a negligible
variation in side force and rolling force.
5 CONCLUSION:
Wind tunnel experiments were used to predict the aerodynamic coefficients and
flow field around a generic tail controlled air – to – air missile configurations in low
subsonic flow. Computations were carried out at several angles of attack ranging from –

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 15o to 15o. Results were compared with the existing literatures and found to reasonably
good it is also observed that the stalling angle for the missile configurations must be
greater than 15o as no break down in the normal force coefficient was experienced till 15o
angle of attack in both fins. Grid fin configuration produces normal coefficients, which is
about 13 % greater than planar fins at high angles of attack for the same velocity and this
trend found to be the same for all angle of attack.
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Axial force coefficient obtained from the grid fin missile configuration was about
0.8 times greater than that of planar fin configuration for same conditions. This
contradicts the previous speculation that the grid fins will produce higher axial force
coefficients when compared to planar fins. This was achieved in the present study by
reducing the web thickness and the outer frame of the fin.

6 REFERENCES:

1) James Despirito, “Numerical Computations os supersonic flow past missiles with lattice
fins”. Army Research laboratory, Weapons & Materials research Directorate,Aberdeen
Proving ground, MD,USA.
2) Despirito, J.,Vaughn, M., Washington,W.D.”CFD investigation of canard Controlled
missile with planar and grid fins in supersonic flow,” AIAA Paper 2002-4509, August
2002.
3) A.Dupuis, C.Berner, “Aerodynamic Aspects of a Grid finned projectile at subsonic and
supersonic velocities”. 19th International Symposium of Ballistics, 7-11 May 2001,
Interlaken, Switzerland.
4) Gregg Abate, Gerald Winchenbach, and Wayne Hathaway, “Transonic Aerodynamic and
Scaling Issues for Lattice fin Projectiles tested in a Ballistics Range”. 19th International
Symposium of Ballistics, 7-11 May 2001, Interlaken, Switzerland.
5) James Depirito, Harris L.Edge, Paul Weinacht and Juburaj Sahu. “CFD analysis of grid
for Maneuvering Missiles” AIAA 2000-0391.
6) E.Y.Fournier, “Wind tunnel investigation of a high L/D projectile with grid fin and
Conventional planar control Surfaces”. 19th International Symposium of Ballistics, 7-11
May 2001, Interlaken, Switzerland.
7) John E. Burk halter, Roy J. Hart field, and Todd M.Leleux “Nonlinear Aerodynamic
Analysis of grid fin Configurations” Journal of aircraft Vol.32 No.3, May – June 1995.
8) Ross A. Brooks and John E. Burk halter “Experimental and Analytical Analysis of Grid
Fin Configurations” Journal of aircraft Vol.26 No.9, September1989.
9) John E. Burk halter and Harris M. Frank “Grid Fin Aerodynamics for Missile
Applications in Subsonic Flow” Journal of spacecraft and rockets. Vol. 33, No.1 Jan –
Feb 1996.
10) Joseph Brooks, Avrum Jacobson, Andre Joseph, Michael Millet “Results for
Investigation of Grid Fin Control Surfaces in Subsonic Flows” University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 21, 2004
11) James DeSpirito, Harris L.Edge, Paul Weinacht and Jubaraj Sahu “Computational fluid
dynamic analysis of a Missile with Grid Fins” Journal of spacecraft and rockets. Vol. 38,
No.5 Sept – Oct 2001.

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