The Flight Loads Laboratory (FLL) was constructed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in 1964 as a unique national laboratory to support flight research and tests of aircraft structures. The FLL conducts mechanical-load and thermal studies of structural components and complete flight vehicles in addition to performing calibration tests of vehicle instrumentation for real-time determination flight loads. Mechanical loads and thermal conditions can be applied either separately or simultaneously to represent combined thermal-mechanical load conditions.
The FLL's experienced and skilled technical staff provides expertise in ground and flight test design and operations; load, stress and thermal analysis; and instrumentation and measurement systems development. These skills, coupled with a large array of capital equipment and advanced data acquisition and control systems, make the FLL an ideal location to test aerospace structures from subsonic through hypersonic flight regimes.
Above: Time lapse photo of Active Aeroelastic Wing structural testing in FLL. Image credit: NASA
Flight Loads Laboratory at DFRC
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NASA's ATP Program
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"The right facility at the right time" - NASA Aeronautics Test Program
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