Effects of Wave Parameters on Load Reduction Performance for Amphibious Aircraft with V-Hydrofoil

Abstract

An investigation of the influence of the hydrofoil on load reduction performance during an amphibious aircraft landing on still and wavy water is conducted by solving the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations coupled with the standard k−ω turbulence model in this paper. During the simulations, the numerical wave tank is realized by using the velocity-inlet boundary wave maker coupled with damping wave elimination techniques on the outlet, while the volume of fluid model is employed to track the water–air interface. Subsequently, the effects of geometric parameters of hydrofoil have been first discussed on still water, which indicates the primary factor influencing the load reduction is the static load coefficient of hydrofoil. Furthermore, the effects of descent velocity, wave length, and wave height on load reduction are comprehensively investigated. The results show that the vertical load reduces by more than 55% at the early stage of landing on the still water by assembling the hydrofoil for different descent velocity cases. Meanwhile, for amphibious aircraft with high forward velocity, the bottom of the fuselage will come into close contact with the first wave when landing in crest position, and then the forebody will impact the next wave surface with extreme force. In this circumstance, the load reduction rate decreases to around 30%, which will entail a further decline with the increase in wave length or wave height.