High fidelity, multi-disciplinary analysis of flow in realistic weapon bays

Loupy, Gaëtan J.M. (2018) High fidelity, multi-disciplinary analysis of flow in realistic weapon bays. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

To improve the stealthiness, and the efficiency of military aircraft, engineers moved carried weapons from external hand points, to weapons bays. However, the flow inside bays is turbulent, and characterised by strong broadband, and tonal noise. The open bay flow leads to variability in the released store trajectory, excites the missile, and bay structures, and reduces the aircraft stealthiness. This thesis aims to improve our understanding of real weapon bay flow, and suggests a method for quantifying the store trajectory variability.
The main spatio-temporal characteristics of cavity flows are described using post-processing methods, like, SPL, OASPL, and wavelet transform. Also, the code HMB3 is validated for simulation of cavity flows, comparing Scale Adaptive (SAS) results with experiments. To further improve the understanding of the physics driving this flow, a simple model is presented, and compared to experiments. The results are promising, and the model is able to reproduce the cavity flow fluctuations both in space and time.
To support measurements of the noise field around a cavity flow, beamforming is applied to the CFD results. This method was able of capturing the main sources of noise around the cavity, using a microphone array, and the mean flow to simulate the propagation of acoustic waves. Also, recommendations for future use of this technique are given.
Developments were carried out for this thesis, and for the first time, a CFD code is reported to simulate the complete weapon bay operation, including door operation, store release, and store aeroelasticity. The different parts of the code are strongly coupled, and work together. Thanks to new capabilities of HMB3, this thesis shows more insight on the physics behind realistic weapon bay operation. The flow establishment during door opening is described, and appears to be important for store design, only if the doors are moving very fast. Store releases are simulated, and statistical analysis of the data is performed. A statistical metric was proposed to identify the minimum number of simulations necessary for capturing the mean and standard deviation of the trajectories. Using averaged, and filtered flow data, the trajectory phases were identified and the role of the pressure field inside the cavity was clarified. In addition, the aeroelasticity of the store was computed during carriage, door opening, and release phases, showing small deformations that may lead to structural fatigue. Thanks to the efficiency of the SAS method, a large number of simulations were performed, and more than 1800 cavity travel times were simulated.
Simulation of the flow around a store in a supersonic flow, and at high attitude is described in an appendix of the thesis. Like a cavity, this flow has complex features that require advanced turbulence modelling to be simulated.
In addition, novel cavity flow controls are investigated, and described in a restricted appendix of the thesis.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Supported by MBDA UK Ltd.
• Keywords: Transonic, cavity flow, CFD, aerodynamics, store release, weapon bay, aeroelastic.
• Subjects: T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General); T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics; U Military Science > U Military Science (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Autonomous Systems and Connectivity
• Supervisor's Name: Barakos, Professor George
• Date of Award: 2018
• Depositing User: Dr Gaëtan Jean-Marie Loupy
• Unique ID: glathesis:2018-9091
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 15 May 2018 10:13
• Last Modified: 15 Jun 2018 13:27
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/9091

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