Simulation and Modeling of Wind Effects on Airdrop Systems

Abstract

Abstract : The goal of this project has been to develop computational tools for the simulation of candidate airdrop systems for the New World Vistas (NWV) Precision Airdrop (PAD) program. To accomplish this goal, researchers from the University of Connecticut, Rice University, and the US Army Soldier Systems Center at Natick have collaborated in developing a coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Structural Dynamics (CSD) program to simulate three-dimensional, transient Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) phenomena for airdrop systems. The work performed under this project consists of (1) development of new CFD methods, (2) development of new CSD methods, (3) development of new methods for coupled FSI simulations, (4) verification of the FSI model, and (5) simulation of candidate NWV airdrop systems. The FSI simulations require large scale, nonlinear, transient finite element models for the parachute system and surrounding airflow and therefore are computationally intensive. To address this difficulty, parallel computational techniques have been developed for the FSI model.