Efficient Method for Predicting Stability Derivatives of Flight Vehicles with Damage

Accurate, yet rapid, aerodynamics prediction capabilities are critical to designing air vehicles and assessing the flight dynamics performance of damaged systems.  Current numerical methods lack the scope and fidelity for realistic damage assessment or require significant user involvement in problem set up and mesh preparation for each new damage configuration that renders them unsuitable for routine work.  This effort builds upon Continuum Dynamics, Inc.’s unique software and capabilities in developing full-aircraft aeromechanics analysis tools to assemble a new rapid nonlinear physics-based analysis system that provides CFD-level physics modeling fidelity together with fully autonomous production of the damaged surfaces and grids, thereby absolving the user from attending to this time-consuming task and significantly shortening and automating the workflow.  The proposed analysis combines a well-validated, general purpose flow solver, which already accommodates irregular and imperfectly defined surfaces representative of OMLs with damage, with an innovative analysis procedure to dramatically reduce the time required to undertake flight dynamics assessment of damaged aircraft and missiles.  Software formulation and user interface development will directly address workflow bottlenecks that plague contemporary approaches.  Phase I will see prototype software development, along with direct quantification of performance benefits when applied to configurations with and without realistic damage distributions.