CFD in Support of Flight Testing for Aircraft/Stores Integration

This paper discusses the use of CFD in predicting and evaluating the Aerodynamic flow field for the integration of a new store using the software program ANSYS. Determining the flow about an aircrat/store combination can be extremely difficult. Complicated geometries such as pylons, launchers, and internal weapons bays can create severe acoustic and aerothermodynamic environments, which are challenging to numerically simulate. The additional challenge of rapidly and accurately simulating the trajectory of a store separation in a high-volume simulation environments is beyond the capabilities of most CFD programs. The use of CFD can provide time-critical support for engineering analyses in the form of computed aircraft/store carriage aerodynamic loads, predicted store separation characteristics, and visualized fow field physics. CFD can also be used to optimize the application of ground and flight testing, reducing risk and lowering cost of fielding new weapons.