Optimization and verification of wind tunnel free-flight similarity law for separation of cluster munition

Abstract

In view of the separation form of the separator from the back of the carrier upward and from the side of the carrier outward, separation-safety research is carried out by taking the separation of a cluster munition as an example. In previous wind tunnel free-flight tests, the similarity law of vertical, downward, moving submunition was used to design submunitions at different positions in different initial-velocity directions, which resulted in large discrepancies between wind tunnel test results and real flight. In a wind tunnel test, each submunition has an independent time-reduction ratio with respect to the dispenser. Even if the separation trajectory of a single submunition is accurate, there will be errors in the position of each submunition at a given time. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the time-reduction ratio between submunitions, and to modify the test results later. In order to ensure the accuracy of wind tunnel test results, the similarity law of a free-flight test in a wind tunnel is derived in this paper. The time-correction scheme to ensure motion similarity between submunitions is solved. Numerical simulation is used to simulate the separation of a wind tunnel test and real aircraft, and the motion parameters of different submunitions are solved. The results show that the new similarity laws derived for different types of submunitions can greatly reduce the errors caused by previous similarity laws. In addition to the case for the separation of a cluster munition, the similarity law can also be applied to the free-flight test design of wind tunnels for vertical separation and horizontal separation of other kinds of aircraft.