The Numerical Simulation of UAV's Landing in Ship Airwake

无人机着舰流场的数值模拟研究

¹ School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
² Science and Technology on UAV Laboratory, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710065, China

Received: 11 January 2018

Abstract

In order to investigate the influence of ship airwake on aerodynamic characteristics of the carrier-based aircraft, UAV's landings in different winds over deck were simulated by Overset Mesh method. Firstly, mesh factors, steady and unsteady methods were compared based on single aircraft carrier. The results showed that the boundary layer mesh around ship didn't show obvious influence for our simulation, and the calculation results between the steady and unsteady time average showed a similar trend. Then, aircraft carrier's flow fields in three wind directions were analyzed, and ship airwake variations with different direction winds over deck were concluded as well. Next, the reliability of Overset Mesh was verified though single UAV's landing simulation. Finally, the coupled flow fields of UAV/ship were studied. The calculation results indicated that aircraft was always in a low dynamic pressure condition, the lift and pitching moment of UAV had apparent changes in landing. Meanwhile, the aerodynamic fluctuations of UAV also revealed differences in different wind directions. The simulation results can be regarded as a reference for the safety assessment of carrier-based aircraft's landing and its control in the future.

摘要

针对航母尾迹对舰载机着舰过程气动特性的影响，采用嵌套网格的方法，对无人机在不同风向下的着舰过程进行了数值模拟。首先，对不同网格划分，定常和非定常计算进行了比较，发现有无附面层对航母流场结果影响不大，下滑线上定常计算的结果和非定常时均的结果类似。然后，对0°和±15°风向下的航母流场进行了分析，表明航母尾迹随风向的变化而变化。接着，对单独无人机降落的过程进行了模拟，验证了所建立的嵌套网格的可靠性。最后，对耦合航母情况下无人机的着舰进行了仿真，结果表明降落过程中飞机一直处于低动压的状态，升力和俯仰力矩变化明显，不同风向下着舰气动特性的变化也存在差异。研究结果为以后舰载机安全着舰的评估和控制提供了参考。