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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1977

Application of laser velocimetry to aircraft wake-vortex measurements

The theory and use of a laser velocimeter that makes simultaneous measurements of vertical and longitudinal velocities while rapidly scanning a flow field laterally are described, and its direct application to trailing wake-vortex research is discussed. Pertinent measurements of aircraft wake-vortex velocity distributions obtained in a wind tunnel and water towing tank are presented. The utility of the velocimeter to quantitatively assess differences in wake velocity distributions due to wake dissipating devices and span loading changes on the wake-generating model is also demonstrated.

Ciffone, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Multimodel Ensemble Methods for Prediction of Wake-Vortex Transport and Decay Originating NASA

Several multimodel ensemble methods are selected and further developed to improve the deterministic and probabilistic prediction skills of individual wake-vortex transport and decay models. The different multimodel ensemble methods are introduced, and their suitability for wake applications is demonstrated. The selected methods include direct ensemble averaging, Bayesian model averaging, and Monte Carlo simulation. The different methodologies are evaluated employing data from wake-vortex field measurement campaigns conducted in the United States and Germany.

Korner, Stephan↗
NASA NTRS1976

Hazard criteria for wake vortex encounters

Piloted six-degrees-of-freedom motion simulator investigations were conducted at the NASA Ames Research Center to determine criteria relating the hazard posed by a wake vortex encounter to the response of the encountering airplane. These investigations demonstrated that wake vortex encounters can be realistically reproduced on a simulator, established that the maximum bank angle due to the encounter provides the best correlation with the pilot's subjective assessment of the hazard, and determined hazard boundaries in terms of maximum bank angle for two classes of jet transport aircraft.

Sammonds, R. I.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Approximate boundary condition procedure for the two-dimensional numerical solution of vortex wakes

Research on efficient computational methods for general vorticity fields has been conducted in connection with a need for basic research on vortex-dominated flows. The present investigation is concerned with the evolution of vortex wakes behind aircraft wings. An efficient procedure is presented for the calculation of the boundary values used in the numerical solution of the unsteady, incompressible, two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for an unbounded flow field. The extent of the computational grid can be reduced compared to methods utilizing standard boundary conditions, without loss of accuracy. The efficiencies realized make it feasible to calculate the vortex wake development for realistic wing configurations, including the merging of multiple vortices, for Reynolds numbers of about 10,000 based on wing chord.

Weston, R. P.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Historical Overview of Research on Lift-Generated Vortex Wakes

A historical overview is presented of research conducted on the structure and modification of the vortices generated by the lifting surfaces of subsonic transport aircraft. Although primarily presented from an experimental point of view, the use of relatively compact theoretical formulations and concepts are used to indicate the progress made. It is pointed out that the first objective of the research is to reduce the magnitude of the hazard potential posed by the wakes of aircraft by modifying the aerodynamics of the wake-generating aircraft. A secondary objective is to develop the technology that will make it possible to safely avoid vortex wakes in the airport environment for increased capacity. If either or both objectives are achieved, the hazard posed by vortex wakes should have a greatly reduced impact on the operational capacity of airports for landings and takeoffs. Since a satisfactory solution to either of these two goals have not yet been achieved, the last part of the presentation will be devoted to a discussion of some requirements that have been placed on any prospective solution to either goal, if is to be acceptable. The material to be used in the presentation is published in the open literature.

Rossow, Vernon J.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Historical Overview of Research on Lift-Generated Vortex Wakes

A historical overview is presented of research conducted on the structure and modification of the vortices generated by the lifting surfaces of subsonic transport aircraft. Although primarily presented from an experimental point of view, the use of relatively compact theoretical formulations and concepts are used to indicate the progress made. It is pointed out that the first objective of the research is to reduce the magnitude of the hazard potential posed by the wakes of aircraft by modifying the aerodynamics of the wake-generating aircraft. A secondary objective is to develop the technology that will make it possible to safely avoid vortex wakes in the airport environment for increased capacity. If either or both objectives are achieved, the hazard posed by vortex wakes should have a greatly reduced impact on the operational capacity of airports for landings and takeoffs. Since a satisfactory solution to either of these two goals have not yet been achieved, the last part of the presentation will be devoted to a discussion of some requirements that have been placed on any prospective solution to either goal, if is to be acceptable. The material to be used in the presentation is published in the open literature.

Rossow, Vernon J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Criteria Relating Wake Vortex Encounter Hazard to Aircraft Response

Piloted six-degree-of-freedom motion simulator investigations were conducted at the NASA Ames Research Center to determine criteria relating the hazard posed by a wake vortex encounter to the response of the encountering airplane. These investigations demonstrated that wake vortex encounters can be reproduced realistically on a simulator, established that the maximum bank angle due to the encounter provides the best correlation with the pilot's subjective assessment of the hazard, and determined hazard boundaries in terms of maximum bank angle for two classes of jet transport aircraft.

Sammonds, Robert I.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Overview of the preparation and use of an OV-10 aircraft for wake vortex hazards flight experiments

An overview is presented of the development, use, and current flight-test status of a highly instrumented North American Rockwell OV-10A Bronco as a wake-vortex-hazards research aircraft. A description of the operational requirements and measurements criteria, the resulting instrumentation systems and aircraft modifications, system-calibration and research flights completed to date, and current flight status are included. These experiments are being conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of an effort to provide the technology to safely improve the capacity of the nation's air transportation system and specifically to provide key data in understanding and predicting wake vortex decay, transport characteristics, and the dynamics of encountering wake turbulence. The OV-10A performs several roles including meteorological measurements platform, wake-decay quantifier, and trajectory-quantifier for wake encounters. Extensive research instrumentation systems include multiple airdata sensors, video cameras with cockpit displays, aircraft state and control-position measurements, inertial aircraft-position measurements, meteorological measurements, and an on-board personal computer for real-time processing and cockpit display of research data. To date, several of the preliminary system check flights and two meteorological-measurements deployments have been completed. Several wake encounter and wake-decay-measurements flights are planned for the fall of 1995.

Stuever, Robert A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

NASA wake vortex research

NASA is conducting research that will enable safe improvements in the capacity of the nation's air transportation system. The wake-vortex hazard is a factor in establishing the minimum safe spacing between aircraft during landing and takeoff operations and, thus, impacts airport capacity. The ability to accurately model the wake hazard and determine safe separation distances for a wide range of aircraft and operational scenarios may provide the basis for significant increases in airport capacity. Current and planned NASA research is described which is focused on increasing airport capacity by safely reducing wake-hazard-imposed aircraft separations through advances in a number of technologies including vortex motion and decay prediction, vortex encounter modeling, wake-vortex hazard characterization, and in situ flow sensing.

Stough, H. P., III↗
NASA NTRS1997

Wake Vortex Sensors Requirements Overview

The presentation includes discussions of primary wake vortex system requirements, evolution models, sensor evolution, site specific sensor tradeoffs, wake sensor functions, deployment considerations, the operational test bed system and additional sensor requirements.

Hinton, David A.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Design Space Exploration for Novel Reduced-Vortex Turbine Rotors Using Free Vortex Wake Methods

In this work, we explore the use of mid-fidelity free vortex wake (FVW) tools, namely NREL's cOnvecting LAgrangian Filaments (OLAF) tool, to design and analyze wind turbine rotor blades. The goal of the exercise is to determine whether designs exist that out-perform traditional blade designs, which are optimized using the Blade-Element Momentum (BEM) method. We find that using design of experiments to generate simple modifications of the blade tip, OLAF predicts higher performance in terms of power coefficient for redesigned blades that are non-optimal according to BEM. We then use optimization methods with OLAF in the loop to attempt to automatically find OLAF-optimal designs. We analyze the results of these optimizations, demonstrating that some roadblocks exist before OLAF and FVW tools can be used to automatically find FVW-optimal blade designs that might exceed the performance of BEM-optimal blade designs.

blade design↗
NASA NTRS1998

Two Dimensional Wake Vortex Simulations in the Atmosphere: Preliminary Sensitivity Studies

A numerical large-eddy simulation model is currently being used to quantify aircraft wake vortex behavior with meteorological observables. The model, having a meteorological framework, permits the interaction of wake vortices with environments characterized by crosswind shear, stratification, and humidity. The addition of grid-scale turbulence as an initial condition appeared to have little consequence. Results show that conventional nondimensionalizations work very well for vortex pairs embedded in stably stratified flows. However, this result is based on simple environments with constant Brunt-Vaisala frequency. Results presented here also show that crosswind profiles exert important and complex interactions on the trajectories of wake vortices. Nonlinear crosswind profiles tended to arrest the descent of wake vortex pairs. The member of the vortex pair with vorticity of same sign as the vertical change in the ambient along-track vorticity may be deflected upwards.

Proctor, F. H.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Evaluation of a Wake Vortex Upset Model Based on Simultaneous Measurements of Wake Velocities and Probe-Aircraft Accelerations

Simultaneous measurements were made of the upset responses experienced and the wake velocities encountered by an instrumented Learjet probe aircraft behind a Boeing 747 vortex-generating aircraft. The vortex-induced angular accelerations experienced could be predicted within 30% by a mathematical upset response model when the characteristics of the wake were well represented by the vortex model. The vortex model used in the present study adequately represented the wake flow field when the vortices dissipated symmetrically and only one vortex pair existed in the wake.

Short, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS2002

NWRA AVOSS Wake Vortex Prediction Algorithm

This report provides a detailed description of the wake vortex prediction algorithm used in the Demonstration Version of NASA's Aircraft Vortex Spacing System (AVOSS). The report includes all equations used in the algorithm, an explanation of how to run the algorithm, and a discussion of how the source code for the algorithm is organized. Several appendices contain important supplementary information, including suggestions for enhancing the algorithm and results from test cases.

Robins, R. E.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Wake Vortex Transport in Proximity to the Ground

A sensitivity study for aircraft wake vortex transport has been conducted using a validated large eddy simulation (LES) model. The study assumes neutrally stratified and nonturbulent environments and includes the consequences of the ground. The numerical results show that the nondimensional lateral transport is primarily influenced by the magnitude of the ambient crosswind and is insensitive to aircraft type. In most of the simulations, the ground effect extends the lateral position of the downwind vortex about one initial vortex spacing (b(sub o)) in the downstream direction. Further extension by as much as one b(sub o) occurs when the downwind vortex remains 'in ground effect' (IGE) for relatively long periods of time. Results also show that a layer-averaged ambient wind velocity can be used to bound the time for lateral transport of wake vortices to insure safe operations on a parallel runway.

Hamilton, David W.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Modeling of the Expected Lidar Return Signal for Wake Vortex Experiments

A computer program that models the Lidar return signal for Wake Vortex experiments conducted by the Aerosol Research Branch was written. The specifications of the program and basic theory behind the calculations are briefly discussed. Results of the research and possible future improvements on it are also discussed.

Kruschwitz, Craig A.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Analysis of the Radar Reflectivity of Aircraft Vortex Wakes

Radar has been proposed as a way to track wake vortices to reduce aircraft spacing and tests have revealed radar echoes from aircraft wakes in clear air. The results are always interpreted qualitatively using Tatarski's theory of weak scattering by isotropic atmospheric turbulence. The goal of the present work was to predict the value of the radar cross-section (RCS) using simpler models. This is accomplished in two steps. First, the refractive index is obtained. Since the structure of the aircraft wakes is different from atmospheric turbulence, three simple mechanisms specific to vortex wakes are considered: (1) Radial density gradient in a two-dimensional vortex, (2) three-dimensional fluctuations in the vortex cores, and (3) Adiabatic transport of the atmospheric fluid in a two-dimensional oval surrounding the pair of vortices. The index of refraction is obtained more precisely for the two-dimensional mechanisms than for the three-dimensional ones. In the second step, knowing the index of refraction, a scattering analysis is performed. Tatarski's weak scattering approximation is kept but the usual assumptions of a far-field and a uniform incident wave are dropped. Neither assumption is generally valid for a wake that is coherent across the radar beam. For analytical insight, a simpler approximation that invokes, in addition to weak scattering, the far-field and wide cylindrical beam assumptions, is also developed and compared with the more general analysis. The predicted RCS values for the oval surround the vortices (mechanism C) agree with the experiments of Bilson conducted over a wide range of frequencies. However, the predictions have a cut-off away from normal incidence which is not present in the measurements. Estimates suggest that this is due to turbulence in the baroclinic vorticity generated at the boundary of the oval. The reflectivity of a vortex itself (mechanism A) is comparable to that of the oval (mechanism C) but cuts-off at frequencies lower than those considered in all the experiments to date. The RCS of a vortex happens to peak at the frequency (about 49 MHz) where atmospheric radars (known as ST radars) operate and so the present prediction could be verified in the future. Finally , we suggest that hot engine exhaust could increase RCE by 40 db and reveal vortex circulation, provided its mixing with the surroundings is prevented in the laminarising flow of the vortices.

Shariff, Karim↗