Real-Time Modeling of Rotor Induced Flow with Shipboard Interactions

Rotor induced flow modeling is a central part for almost every aspect of rotorcraft simulation and analysis. There are, however, challenges in the accurately predicting the unsteady rotor wake transportation, especially when it interacts with aerodynamic disturbances from nearby aerodynamic bodies such as a fuselage, a ground surface, or a ship landing deck. This proposal aims to develop an adequate real-time rotor induced flow model for shipboard flight simulation. The model to be developed will be a physics-based viscous vortex wake model that can properly capture the effects of the rotor/ship interaction under shipboard operating conditions. It is also proposed to develop a formulation and a set of algorithms to derive an efficient real-time finite state induced flow model from the high fidelity viscous vortex simulation in support of flight simulation.