Modeling and Simulation of Bow Wave in Aerial Refueling

Abstract

In a probe-and-drogue aerial refueling system, the tanker docking system consists of a hose and a drogue. When the receiver approaches the drogue, the dynamics of the drogue may be seriously disturbed by the aerodynamic effect from the receiver which is commonly known as the bow wave effect. In this paper, a numerical simulation method based on potential flow theory is proposed to investigate the bow wave effect. The proposed method is efficient and can be conveniently used in the modelling and simulation of autonomous aerial refuelling system. The results of this method are highly consistent with the CFD results, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.