Abstract
Aircraft, such as amphibious planes, airliners, helicopters and re-entry capsules, are frequently subject to impacting loads from water-landing/ditching on various free surfaces, especially under wave conditions. Understanding and quantifying the water-landing/ditching performance on wave surfaces are of fundamental important for the design and certification of crashworthiness in the field of aerospace engineering. This study aims to numerically assess the effect of wave surface on water-landing process of an amphibious aircraft. The numerical implementation is realized in Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) framework by combining finite volume method (FVM), volume of fluid (VOF) approach and velocity-inlet wavemaker. The temporal-spatial characteristic of numerical wave and the accuracy of presented model are, respectively, validated by analytical wave and convergence studies. The aircraft landing simulations with different free surface conditions, i.e., calm water, regular wave with different wave heights are then performed and quantitatively compared through several physical parameters, including acceleration, velocity, pressure, pitch angle and free surface deformation. It was found that the aircraft regular wave-landing process experiences several unique stages comparing with the calm-water-landing case. The results clearly confirm that wave surface can influence the aircraft landing performance to a great extent. The fundamental mechanism is found to be that the wave surface slope and wave particle velocity remarkably change the impacting position and effective impacting velocity of the aircraft.
Highlights
In the aerospace industry, aircraft water-landing/ditching is one of the most concerned topics that has attracted tremendous attention from both engineering and academic communities during the past decades
The aircraft wave-landing performance is essentially different from the calm-waterlanding situation
This paper studied the wave effect on the water-landing process of an amphibious aircraft
Summary
Aircraft water-landing/ditching is one of the most concerned topics that has attracted tremendous attention from both engineering and academic communities during the past decades. This event is described as planned and controlled aircraft landing on free-surface due to extreme emergencies, e.g., bird strike, thunderstorm weather, fuel exhaustion, crew error, terrorist hijack, mechanical failure, etc. The crew, with the aircraft under control, deliberately and gently lands on water according to recommended procedures given in the flight manual [1]. The ditching performance with respect to the safety are essentially matters in the aircraft design and certification process
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
