Aerodynamic Modeling and Simulation of Multi-Lifting Surfaces Based on the Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method

Abstract

Using the unsteady vortex lattice method based on the potential flow theory, a rapid modeling approach is developed for the aerodynamic computation of multi-lifting surfaces. Multiple lifting surfaces with different geometric parameters and grid divisions can be quickly integrated and meshed with the object-oriented data structure. The physical influence between different lifting surfaces was modeled, and the wake–surface interaction was also considered by using different built-in vortex core models. The trajectory data were used to replace the pre-calculated downwash superposition for boundary condition integration, and the instantaneous boundary condition was generated directly from the kinematic states and mesh messages of the model concerned. Considering the direct coupling effect between aerodynamics and rigid body dynamics, the function for free flight was built for medium-fidelity dynamic simulations and aerodynamic data identifications. The proposed high-efficiency modeling and simulation process can be easily applied to models with any number of different lifting surfaces and arbitrary motion modes.