Integration, Control, and Release of Weapons from Internal Bays
The complex aerodynamic environment of open weapon bays in high-speed flows poses significant engineering challenges. Flowfield unsteadiness, for example, can adversely affect the robust release of payloads, leading to unsafe operation, placarding, or damage to the aircraft. Understanding and overcoming these transient effects is paramount for rapid certification and reliable fielding of diverse munitions and payloads for the warfighter. This presentation highlights progress of a DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program Frontier Project to support and expedite the weapons-integration process for relevant platforms, to transform store-clearance procedures for certification, and to design and integrate novel control methods for reliable separation. The first objective explores innovative concepts in carriage, ejection, and vehicle designs for use in future Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The second objective aims to improve the traditional store-clearance approach by incorporating unsteady effects to inform trajectory uncertainty. The third objective focuses on the computational design, optimization, and testing of a novel, passive control concept shown to dramatically suppress the adverse dynamics in and around the bay and significantly improve store release and repeatability. The demonstrated effectiveness should have broad impacts to reduce ejector and carriage requirements, expedite certification on a broader class of payloads and bays, reduce placarding, and reduce structural fatigue. Mixed-fidelity optimization efforts are also being explored to reduce the computational cost of designing the control and enhance the system robustness to differing flowfields and bay loadouts.
IMPACT
Accomplishment: Researched advancements to the store-clearance process, ejection systems, and control. Result: Will lead to faster certification of future platforms and allow for more weapons per bay.
PRESENTER
Schwartz, Matthew
matthew.schwartz.20@us.af.mil
615-495-4505
AFRL
CO-AUTHOR(S)
Sherer, Scott
scott.sherer@us.af.mil
Speth, Rachelle
rachelle.speth@us.af.mil
Frede, Michael
michael.frede.ctr@us.af.mil
Garmann, Daniel
daniel.garmann@us.af.mil
Barnes, Caleb
caleb.barnes.1@us.af.mil
Stahl, Spencer
spencer.stahl.ctr@us.af.mil
Maatz, Ian
ian.maatz@us.af.mil
CATEGORY
Comp Fluid Dynamics
SYSTEM(S) USED
Raider, Carpenter, Warhawk, and Narwhal