Wind tunnel investigation of grid fin and conventional planar control surfaces

The present wind tunnel investigation is part of a project studying the effectiveness of grid fin controls on missiles and projectiles. As part of this program, wind tunnel tests were conducted over a range of Mach numbers from 0.5 to 3.0, and aerodynamic coefficients were generated for various body configurations. A second model, with conventional planar surface controls, was also studied under the same conditions. Increase axial force, reduced normal force, and a marked reduction in static stability for the grid fins configuration over the conventional one were the results of this comparison. Another interesting result from the grid fin model, which was shown during the build-up component study, is that the two elevators generated almost 100% of the normal force of the complete body.