Direction Error Suppression of Mechanical Wind Sensors by Optimizing the Configuration of Supporting Beams

In this paper, a novel approach has been presented to suppress the direction measurement errors in mechanical wind sensors by optimizing the configuration of supporting beams. The direction measurement errors of the mechanical wind sensors are closely related to the structural symmetry, which is strongly affected by the imperfections during manufacturing. Therefore, this article theoretically investigates the main asymmetric factors that arise during manufacturing, such as the non-uniform thickness of the supporting beams and the installation deviation of the strain gauges. The results suggest that optimizing the configuration of supporting beams effectively suppresses the direction measurement errors. Based on this result, four sensors with configurations featuring 3, 4, 5, and 6 supporting beams are fabricated, and the wind tunnel experiments demonstrate that an increase in the number of supporting beams significantly reduces the maximum and average direction measurement errors of the mechanical wind sensors. Significantly, the 6-supporting-beam wind sensor achieves a maximum direction measurement error of 4°, representing a substantial improvement compared to the 9° maximum error observed in the 3-supporting-beam device.