Pilot-in-the-Loop CFD Method Development
Abstract
This project is performed under the Office of Naval Research program on Basic and Applied Research in Sea-Based Aviation (ONR BAA12-SN-0028). This project addresses the Sea Based Aviation (SBA) virtual dynamic interface (VDI) research topic area Fast, high-fidelity physics-based simulation of coupled aerodynamics of moving ship and maneuvering rotorcraft . All software supporting piloted simulations must run at real time speeds or faster. This requirement drives the number of equations that can be solved and in turn the fidelity of supporting physics based models. For real-time aircraft simulations, all aerodynamic related information for both the aircraft and the environment are incorporated into the simulation by way of lookup tables. This approach decouples the aerodynamics of the aircraft from the rest of its external environment. However, when an aircraft is flying very close to another body (i.e. a ship superstructure) significant aerodynamic coupling can exist. In such cases it is necessary to perform simultaneous calculations of both the Navier-Stokes equations and the aircraft equations of motion in order to achieve a high level of fidelity. This project will explore novel numerical modeling and computer hardware approaches with the goal of real time, fully coupled CFD for virtual dynamic interface modeling & simulation. Penn State is supporting the project through integration of their GENHEL-PSU simulation model of a utility helicopter with CRAFT Tech s flow solvers. During the period of this report, fully coupled simulations of the helicopter hovering over a ship deck and approaching to a ship deck were performed using loose coupling approaches with an actuator disk model. Results show the successful implementation of the actuator disk model with 1D Gaussian distribution and the changes in both helicopter flight dynamics and ship airwake flow characteristics when the simulation is fully coupled.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- ADA626616
Entities
People
- Joseph F. Horn
Organizations
- Pennsylvania State University