Flyingboyke
Active Member
Hi Everyone
I am a masters student in aerodynamics and for my thesis i'm interested in doing vortex-wing interactions. This is a problem encountered for example during formation flying. Tip vortices shed of the front aircraft can cross the wing (top or bottom) of the rear aircraft, altering the lift distribution with negative resulting effect. I am not talking of tip wakes shed of commercial airliners which induce a rolling motion on the rear plane. I will just consider a vortex over a wing and study the relation between vortex parameters (strength, position, transient behaviour...) w.r.t. lift distribution, aeroelastic effects,...
I plan to do some analytical, numerical but also experimental (wind tunnel tests) research on this matter. To gain some initial feeling about the subject I would like to try this out in practice. I flew behind aircraft before, and felt the effect. Now I want to capture it on video to qualitively study the problem. Therefore I will distribute tufts on the whole wing of the rear aircraft being subjected to a vortex of the front aircraft. Here I should see some induced velocity and its direction.
- But how do I know the wake position of the aircraft up front? I am thinking of attaching some slender smoke trail. Does anyone know what do those aerobatic gliders use in their display? I feel that is a nice way to visualise the path of the wake of the front aircraft. And it should be safe enough not to burn the plane
- Another I also would like to find a way to measure my 3D position w.r.t. the front aircraft. Is there any cheap way to do this. I was thinking of such a DIY laser measurement tool. But that is only direct distance, I would need to point it the whole time and I doubt the range of such a thing is large enough...
Any input on those two problems is appreciated.
I know this is not a very scientific way yet. But I'd like to get a feeling of the flow behaviour, and show to my supervisors it is actually affecting aircraft in flight. I encountered tip wakes before while flying in formation and aeroelastically there are no problems, so no worries about that.
Thank you
I am a masters student in aerodynamics and for my thesis i'm interested in doing vortex-wing interactions. This is a problem encountered for example during formation flying. Tip vortices shed of the front aircraft can cross the wing (top or bottom) of the rear aircraft, altering the lift distribution with negative resulting effect. I am not talking of tip wakes shed of commercial airliners which induce a rolling motion on the rear plane. I will just consider a vortex over a wing and study the relation between vortex parameters (strength, position, transient behaviour...) w.r.t. lift distribution, aeroelastic effects,...
I plan to do some analytical, numerical but also experimental (wind tunnel tests) research on this matter. To gain some initial feeling about the subject I would like to try this out in practice. I flew behind aircraft before, and felt the effect. Now I want to capture it on video to qualitively study the problem. Therefore I will distribute tufts on the whole wing of the rear aircraft being subjected to a vortex of the front aircraft. Here I should see some induced velocity and its direction.
- But how do I know the wake position of the aircraft up front? I am thinking of attaching some slender smoke trail. Does anyone know what do those aerobatic gliders use in their display? I feel that is a nice way to visualise the path of the wake of the front aircraft. And it should be safe enough not to burn the plane
- Another I also would like to find a way to measure my 3D position w.r.t. the front aircraft. Is there any cheap way to do this. I was thinking of such a DIY laser measurement tool. But that is only direct distance, I would need to point it the whole time and I doubt the range of such a thing is large enough...
Any input on those two problems is appreciated.
I know this is not a very scientific way yet. But I'd like to get a feeling of the flow behaviour, and show to my supervisors it is actually affecting aircraft in flight. I encountered tip wakes before while flying in formation and aeroelastically there are no problems, so no worries about that.
Thank you
