Testing, Testing!

Part 1: Wing Static Load Test

By Eric Stewart - March 21, 2021

Part of going off-plans, or making custom versions of structural items, is

that you should be prepared to test these parts at the limit load
designated for the airplane. Additionally, you may want to test unmodi?ed
parts if they will be stressed beyond the original design’s load limits, say if
you plan to change the aircraft category or gross weight.

Since my SR-1 race plane is a clean sheet design, we test a lot of parts.
These tests are either a destructive load to determine failure mode and/or
validate and guide iterative design of a prototype, or a proof load to verify
limit load strength of a ?nished part. Loading the prototype tailwheel
bracket to failure is an example of the former, while a static wing test to 7
G’s without failure is an example of the latter. This three-part series will
discuss a variety of tests and how testing can help you design better,
safer parts. In Part 1, we’ll look at a static wing test, a test many readers
may be familiar with, even if they haven’t done it themselves.

The author (left) and SR-1 project intern Wiley Wilson loading the SR-1 wing for its static load
test. The yellow bags are actually cement to avoid having to stack sandbags excessively high at
the root. The cement bags weigh 100 pounds; the sandbags are 50 pounds.
Why Do Testing?
The goal of static wing testing is to apply a
load equal to the wing design limit load to
ensure that the wing structure is strong
enough to handle these loads in actual
Qight (see sidebar for explanation on load Jonker Sailplanes used a whiJe tree
to certify this sailplane wing. (Photo:
terminology). The load is usually applied in Courtesy of Jonker Sailplanes)
increasing increments of 1 G. This allows
the designer to know the actual load at
failure if the wing fails before reaching limit load and to modify the design
accordingly.

Aerospace companies often use a device called a whiTe tree, which

allows the load to be distributed evenly over the entire wing, with force
applied through one or more cables at the base of the inverted tree;
synchronized hydraulic actuators are also used. For homebuilders, it’s
easier to simply use bags of sand or concrete to simulate the load.

Bags should be applied from the tip

moving inwards. This allows the designer
to more accurately determine the weak
spot if failure should occur. For example,
imagine a wing is loaded to the equivalent
of 3 G’s. We then begin to apply a load
equal to 4 G’s, starting at the tip. At the
midpoint of the wing, the spar breaks. It
will almost certainly break at, or inboard of,
the last bag placed, since placing this bag
Destructive test of the prototype
puts additional load on the inboard section tailwheel bracket on the author’s
universal test machine.
of the wing, but no additional load on the
outboard section of the wing. The designer
thus knows that outboard of the last placed bag the wing is OK to 4 G’s,
but inboard it is stronger than 3 but weaker than 4 G’s. If one moves in the
opposite direction (root to tip), there is no information that outboard of
the last weight placed the wing is strong enough or not.
Static 7 G load test of the SR-1 race plane wing

Bags should be placed chordwise on the wing so that their center of

gravity aligns approximately with the center of lift. If you are concerned
about aeroelastic effects, you will need to position the bags aft of this
point to simulate torsion caused by the wing’s moment. Since the center
of lift is located at approximately 25% of the mean aerodynamic chord,
for most homebuilts the sandbags will be set near the leading edge. If the
spar is located aft of the center of lift, the wingtips will tend to twist to
higher angles of attack relative to the rest of the wing. In contrast, if the
center of lift is located aft of the spar, high G loads will cause the wingtips
to twist downward relative to the root of the wing.

Finally, we must take into account that at the high angles of attack that
produce high G loads, the lift vector is actually canted forward. So in
addition to a normal force bending the wing up, there is also a component
of the force that pulls the wingtips forward. This can be simulated by
canting the wing leading edge down during testing; the cant angle is
determined according to the calculated lift vector. Thus, it is important to
have the drag spar installed on the wing when doing static testing to
prevent the wing from folding forward, since most main spars are
designed to handle vertical bending loads but not fore/aft loads—that’s
the role of the drag spar.
The wing test stand should be beefy enough to handle the anticipated loads. The base should be
large enough to prevent tipping fore/aft and left/right (left). Wing cradles are splash molds pulled
from the top surface of the wing and Bondo’d to the stand (right). Transmission jacks work great
to support the wingtips while load is applied. Similar to the wing cradle, tip cradles are splash
molds of the wingtips Bondo’d directly to the tranny jack. A layer of foam on the cradles protects
the wing. Be sure to locate cradles directly under a wing rib that can support the loads.

Transmission jacks allow adjustment of tilt both fore/aft and left/right, so regardless of the
dihedral or cant angle, it’s easy to perfectly match the angle of the tip cradle to the wing (left).
The jacks are lowered through a check valve controlled by this hand dial (right). It’s important to
lower the left and right side at the same time and speed. Practice with a partner to make sure
you are lowering the jacks in a coordinated manner. The dials on these jacks have been
numbered to help both operators synchronize lowering.

As load is applied, the wing will deQect both downward and, depending on
the location of the aeroelastic axis, will rotate tip-up or tip-down. In order
to precisely calculate deQection caused by load versus deQection caused
by torsion, measurements must be taken at two places chordwise
(preferably the leading and trailing edges) as load is applied. However,
since the aeroelastic axis is usually pretty close to the main spar for most
homebuilts, measuring deQection at the spar will approximate deQection
due to load, and measuring the change in chord angle will approximate
deQection due to moment.

Note that wing load testing can be dangerous due to the large amount of
weight sitting on the wing. Asymmetric failure can Qing weights in the air
or cause structures to move quickly and unexpectedly. For this reason it
is advisable to have jack pads or supports under the wing with just
enough clearance for the wing to Qex under load. That way, if the wing
does fail, it only falls a few tenths of an inch until it is arrested by the jack.

Prepping for the test: Bags are individually weighed. Fifty-pound bags of sand actually weighed
from 45–55 pounds (left). A weight set is helpful to precisely reach the speciYed load at each
station (right).

Typical Procedure
Typical test procedure is to apply a test load, lower the jacks, inspect the
wing as necessary (measure wingtip deQection, check that control
surfaces do not bind, etc.), then raise the jacks again just enough to
support the wingtips. Although this does not completely relieve the wing
of bending stresses, they are signi?cantly lower than when the wingtips
are left unsupported. The next round of sandbags is stacked on the wing,
and the procedure is repeated until the limit load is reached.

Marks on the leading edge show the exact location for each stack of sandbags (left). Sandbags
are placed at the leading edge of the wing so their center of gravity approximates the location of
the center of lift (right).

For limit load testing, wings are not required to carry the load for any
particular amount of time. For ultimate load testing, the wings must hold
ultimate load for 3 seconds before failing. It is therefore advisable to
make your measurements and inspections as quickly as possible and
then raise the jacks again. When approaching limit load, you will want to
exercise extreme caution working near the wing. And while the presence
of the jacks may prevent the wing from crashing downward, they do
nothing to prevent fore/aft movement of the wing.

With the wing on the cradle, the tips are leveled with a water level (left). Shims under the center
cradle (right) level the wing spanwise as well as cant the wing nose down to simulate the
forward tilt of the lift vector at high angles of attack. (Remember, the wing is upside down for
testing, so simulating a forward lift vector is achieved by angling the nose down.)

Determining loads for the wing is relatively straightforward. The load is

simply the G force multiplied by the weight of the aircraft, minus the
weight of the wing and any gear or fuel carried along the span of the wing
(since these exert an inertial force opposite that of the lift and the two
forces effectively cancel each other out).

The spanwise load will be approximately proportional to the chord at that

location along the span. For wings where the planform deviates from the
elliptical ideal (for example, an RV Hershey bar wing), the lift distribution
will approximate something between elliptical and rectangular. Factors
such as control surfaces, washout and spanwise change of airfoil section
can also affect the lift distribution. Hoerner’s Fluid Dynamic Lift is an
excellent reference for calculating spanwise load based on planform.
End view showing nose-down angle of the wing for testing. Strings are for helping measure
de]ection (left). A ruler is Yxed to a square to enable hands-free de]ection measurements (right).

Tails and control surfaces can also be load tested. This tests not only the
structural integrity of the control surface itself but the entire control
system since the controls are held ?xed during the test. Thus any
pushrods, cables, pulleys, linkages, etc. will also be subject to the load
imposed on the control surface. Determining the load for these surfaces
is not as straightforward as for the wing, but it’s not didcult—the
guidelines are provided in the “Simpli?ed Design Load Criteria” in
Appendix A to Part 23 of the FARs.

This ends our discussion of wing static

testing. There are lots of cool videos on
YouTube and elsewhere of wing static
tests, from big composite 787 wings on
down to traditional aluminum wings.
Sonex has some good ones, as does
Check control surfaces under load
DarkAero, so check them out! In the next to ensure that they are free from
binding. Note the anti-slip matting
two articles we’ll look at some dedicated placed between the wing and the
sandbags.
test equipment and how tests can be used
to validate and improve component
design.

Photos: Eric Stewart.

Limit Load vs. Ultimate Load

Limit load means the maximum allowable load in Qight that does not lead
to permanent deformation of the structure of the aircraft. Ultimate load is
the load beyond which the structure will fail. On metal airplanes, loads
greater than limit but less than ultimate will result in bent metal. For
composite airplanes, there is no inelastic region of the stress-strain curve,
so operation above the limit load can, but does not necessarily, damage
the structure and represents operation in a kind of structural “no-man’s
land.” For reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, the ultimate
load of metal airplanes is typically 1.5x limit load, whereas composite
aircraft commonly have an ultimate load 1.5–2x limit load.

—E.S.

Eric Stewart
https://sr-1.weebly.com/

Eric Stewart is designing and building the SR-1, a speed plane for setting records in the FAI c-1a/0
category (takeoff weight less than 661 pounds, including pilot and fuel). You can see more at
facebook.com/TheSR1Project, including additional photos and videos of the subjects in this series of
articles.