Experimental and computational investigation of airwake aerodynamics of the generic aircraft carrier with ski-jump

Abstract

A comprehensive experimental and computational investigation of flow past over a generic aircraft carrier with ski-jump is presented in this paper. The study has been performed to gain a deeper understanding of the airwake aerodynamics past such an aircraft carrier for different crosswind conditions. An experimental investigation is carried out in a wind tunnel on a prototype model of having a length of 1.1 m (1:250 scale). The prototype model was conceived from the various aircraft carriers existing in the world. A five-hole cobra probe is used to measure all the three velocity components along the 3° aircraft's landing slope for validation purposes. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) based computational investigations are conducted to predict the overall airwake aerodynamics over the flight deck. Subsequently, a detailed parametric study has been conducted to examine the effect of relative wind conditions on the aircraft's landing slope. Detailed comparisons of velocity variations along the aircraft glide slope are discussed along with the experimental data. Results show that the top deck island structure and the oblique wind conditions are the two main contributors for adverse airwake aerodynamics over the flight deck.