Pilot-in-the-Loop CFD Method Development

This project addresses the Sea Based Aviation SBA virtual dynamic interface VDI research topic area Fast, high-fidelity physics-based simulation of coupled aerodynamics of moving ship and maneuvering rotorcraft. All software supporting piloted simulations must run at real time speeds or faster. This requirement drives the number of equations that can be solved and in turn the fidelity of supporting physics based models. For real-time aircraft simulations, all aerodynamic related information for both the aircraft and the environment are incorporated by way of lookup tables. This approach decouples the aerodynamics of the aircraft from the rest of its external environment. For example, ship airwakes are calculated using CFD solutions without the presence of the helicopter main rotor. The gusts from the turbulent ship airwake are then re-played into the aircraft aerodynamic model via look-up tables. However, when an aircraft is flying very close to another body i.e. a ship superstructure, aerodynamic coupling can exist. The main rotor of the helicopter distorts the flow around the ship possibly resulting significant differences in the disturbance on the helicopter. This project will explore novel numerical modeling and computer hardware approaches with the goal of real time, fully coupled CFD for virtual dynamic interface modeling simulation. Penn State is supporting the project through integration of their GENHEL-PSU simulation model of a utility helicopter with CRAFT-Tech s flow solvers. Penn State will provide their piloted simulation facility the VLRCOE rotorcraft simulator for preliminary demonstrations of pilot-in-the-loop simulations. Finally, Penn State will provide support for a final demonstration of the methods on the NAVAIR Manned Flight Simulator. During this period of report, the GENHEL-PSU code has been ported to a Linux platform in order to more readily integrate with the CRUNCH flow solvers that will be used in coupled simulations.