Numerical simulations of aerial application systems: Development of the models and their applications

HAZEBROUCK GUILLERMO, PREIDIKMAN SERGIO Y MASSA JULIO

Córdoba, Argentina

Conferencia; CAIA 2010 – II Congreso Argentino de Ingeniería Aeronáutica; 2010

Instituto Universitario Aeronáutico

In the present effort, numerical algorithms are developed and validated in order to reach a better comprehension of aerial application systems most commonly used in practice. The main idea consists in treating the airstream, the aircraft, the droplets, and the ground surface as elements of a single dynamic system, so that all the governing equations can be simultaneously and interactively integrated in the time domain. The coupled problem is attacked by introducing i ) an aerodynamic model; ii ) an aircraft geometric shape model; iii ) a ground surface model; and iv) a method that handles all the three models at the same time. The developed tool is quite innovative since it is based on an aerodynamic method that has never been used for this purpose before, the “Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method”. Through its implementation, all the aerodynamic interaction effects between the components of the system can be taken into account. This allows treating at once several problems of aerodynamic interaction that are normally treated separately, such as ground effect and aerodynamic influence of the wingtip-devices.