Optimal design of UAV's pod shape

Qun Wei; Hong-guang Jia

doi:10.1117/12.899424

8 September 2011 Optimal design of UAV's pod shape

Qun Wei, Hong-guang Jia

Proceedings Volume 8193, International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2011: Advances in Infrared Imaging and Applications; 81930T (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.899424
Event: International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2011, 2011, Beijing, China

Abstract

In the modern war, UAV(unmanned aircraft system) plays a more and more important role in the army. UAVs always carry electrical-optical reconnaissance systems. These systems are used to accomplish the missions of observing and reconnaissance the battlefield. For traditional UAV, the shape of the pod on UAV is sphericity. In addition, the pod of UAV not only has the job of observing and reconnaissance the battlefield, but its shape also has impact on the UAV's drag when it flies in the air. In this paper, two different kinds of pod models are set up, one is the traditional sphericity model, the other is a new model. Unstructured grid is used on the flow field. Using CFD(computational fluid dynamic) method, the results of the drags of the different kinds of pod are got. The drag's relationship between the pod and the UAV is obtained by comparing the results of simulations. After analyzing the results we can get: when UAV flies at low speed(0.3Ma~0.7Ma), the drag's difference between the two kinds of pod is little, the pod's drag takes a small part of the UAV's whole drag which is only about 14%. At transonic speed(0.8Ma~1.2Ma), the drag's difference between these two kinds of pod is getting bigger and bigger along with the speed goes higher. The traditional pod's drag is 1/3 of the UAV's whole drag value, but for the new pod, it is only 1/5. At supersonic speed(1.3Ma~2.0Ma), the traditional pod's drag goes up rapidly, but the new kind of pod's drag goes up slowly. This makes the difference between the two kinds of UAVs' total drag comes greater. For example, at 2Ma, the total drag of new UAV is only 2/3 of the traditional UAV. These results show: when the UAV flies at low speed, these two kinds of pod have little difference in drag. But if it flies at supersonic speed, the pod has great impact on the UAV's total drag, so the designer of UAV's pod should pay more attention on the out shape.

Citation Download Citation

Qun Wei and Hong-guang Jia "Optimal design of UAV's pod shape", Proc. SPIE 8193, International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2011: Advances in Infrared Imaging and Applications, 81930T (8 September 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.899424

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