Parametric study of aircraft response due to wake vortex encounter

A simulation-based tool which creates mathematical functions that statistically model aircraft responses during various user-selectable wake encounters is presented. A wake vortex is created as a result of aircraft wings moving through the viscous air. The methods currently available to minimize the influence of wake vortices on the trailing aircraft can often impact airport capacity. As such, it is of interest to quantify the effect of different size wakes at different encounter geometries and with different aircraft types, flight configurations, speeds, and altitudes. By collecting simulation results generated using a high-fidelity computational-fluid-dynamics-based aircraft flight model combined with industry, government, and academic wake models, numerous encounter aircraft responses (e.g., pitch, roll, Gs, altitude deviation, etc.) can be calculated. Using the multi-variable least squares method, closed-form mathematical formulas can then be generated from the simulation results to allow for the calculation of other wake encounter situations. This paper presents the preliminary design and gives results from the simulation tool and the associated post-processing for generation of the wake encounter equations and their aircraft-type-specific coefficients. A simple case study is then presented to demonstrate some typical results.