The ability to simulate complex aerodynamics accurately and improve flight-modelling capabilities is to be the focus of research beginning next year at the UK’s University of Liverpool.
Existing flight simulations simplify the modelling of an aircraft using a database of known aerodynamic coefficients. The Liverpool team will develop software code to more realistically describe the aerodynamics.
“We would like to simulate the flight mechanics of existing aircraft in extreme situations,” says principal investigator Ken Badcock, the university’s computational aerodynamics professor.
Modelling the vortices formed by wings at high angles of attack will be of interest, Badcock says, because they do not have simple linear relationships with the aircraft’s velocity.
Research will also include the simulation of wing flutter on the BAE Systems Hawk trainer.
Source: Flight International
