This project was a preliminary exercise of vibration testing of a full-scale helicopter. The U.S. Army donated two Vietnam-era McDonnell-Douglas OH-6A helicopters to the Naval Postgraduate School. One of these is flight-worthy, and the other is available for airframe-related research. The first student effort in this project was a simple suspended shake-test of the OH-6A airframe. The natural frequencies obtained in this test were used in a sensitivity-based model updating exercise, performed by the following student. The finite element model was provided by McDonnell-Douglas Corp.

Publications:

LT John H. Harris, III
Preliminary Vibration Survey of a Suspended Full-Scale OH-6A Helicopter
Thesis (M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering) Naval Postgraduate School, March 1996. Abstract

LT Michael Pampalon
Development, correlation and updating of a finite element model of the OH-6A helicopter.
Thesis (M.S. in Mechanical Engineering) Naval Postgraduate School, Dec. 1996. Abstract