Establishing Fluid Dynamics Scales Critical to Dynamic Interface Applications and their Impact on Handling Qualities

Abstract

The ship-helicopter dynamic interface (DI) represents a complex environment where a helicopter operates near a moving ship that is excited by sea state and sheds highly unsteady airwake, which interacts with the airframe and rotor wake and can significantly increase pilot workload. This complex environment is typically analyzed using flight simulation. However, application of flight simulations tends to be ship-helicopter configuration specific and a fundamental understanding of what is good enough when choosing between modeling fidelity levels for such simulations is currently lacking. This effort aimed to investigate both ship airwake and rotorcraft response from a fundamental physics perspective to obtain generalizations that can provide high-level quantitative insights into modeling fidelity requirements for the dynamic interface associated with any given rotorcraft-ship configuration without resorting to expensive simulations. We examined both ship airwake and rotorcraft response to simplified disturbances.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 03, 2024
Accession Number
AD1227411

Entities

People

  • Abhinav Sharma
  • Glen R. Whitehouse
  • Jeffrey D. Keller

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.