High Altitude Gust Criteria for Aircraft Design

Abstract

The report consists of analysis of measurements made in HICAT flight program and described in reports issued in 1967 and 1968. Clear air turbulent regions in the altitude range 45,000 to 65,000 ft. varied in length from 1 to 115 nm. Power spectral density curves computed from data from the longer turbulent regions had slopes and scale lengths that varied over a relatively wide range. Composite spectra for altitude and topographic categories for the long turbulent regions had slopes of -1.25 to -1.55 for the vertical component, -1.50 to -1.70 for the lateral component, and -1.45 to -1.60 for the longitudinal component. The scale lengths were all above 8,000 ft. The standard deviations of the root-mean-square gust velocities increase significantly with increase in roughness of underlying terrain. The range in values is 0.9 to 3.4 ft/sec. for the vertical component, 1.5 to 4.6 ft/sec for the lateral component and 1.2 to 4.6 ft/sec. for the longitudinal component. There was relatively little change with altitude. The minimum root-mean-square velocity to be considered turbulence varied 0.95 to 3.02 ft/sec. if truncated spectra were used to establish basic definitions of turbulence.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1970
Accession Number
AD0878415

Entities

People

  • Craig A. Melvin
  • David E. Waco
  • Edward V. Ashburn

Organizations

  • Lockheed Martin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Clear Air Turbulence
  • Frequency
  • Geography
  • High Altitude
  • High Mountains
  • Long Wavelengths
  • Mountains
  • Probability
  • Standards
  • Terrain
  • Thunderstorms
  • Topography
  • Turbulence
  • Wind
  • Wind Direction

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Fluid Dynamics.