THEORY OF THE FLIGHT OF AIRPLANES IN ISOTROPIC TURBULENCE - REVIEW AND EXTENSION

Abstract

Recent experimental information on low-level atmospheric turbulence is first reviewed. It is suggested that the assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy customarily adopted for high altitudes are still useful in this regime, and that the integral scale is roughly equal to 9/10 of the altitude up to about 1000 ft. Next, the previously published theory of the 'power-series approximation' as applied to the vertical component of the gust is extended to include all three velocity components simultaneously. Fourteen different one- dimensional input power spectra and cross spectra are found of which only five are important. Of these five, only one is a cross-spectrum involving two different velocity components (u and v). Formulae for them are calculated and curves are presented. The 'gust derivatives' required for calculating airplane response are defined and discussed, and the most important ones are shown to be simply the negatives of classical stability derivatives. Methods of approach for calculating the remaining ones are suggested.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1961
Accession Number
AD0445597

Entities

People

  • B. Etkin

Organizations

  • AGARD

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerodynamic Forces
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Airplanes
  • Altitude
  • Atmospheric Motion
  • Boundary Layer
  • Control Systems
  • Equations
  • Equations Of Motion
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Power Spectra
  • Stratified Fluids
  • Swept Wings
  • Transfer Functions
  • Turbulence
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Systems Analysis and Design