NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF AERODYNAMIC INTERACTION OF AIR-LAUNCHED ROCKETS FROM A HELICOPTER

Numerical simulation of air-launched rockets from a helicopter was conducted to investigate the aerodynamic interference between air-launched rocket and helicopter. For this purpose, a three-dimensional inviscid flow solver has been developed based on unstructured meshes. An overset mesh technique was used to describe the relative motion between rocket and rocket launcher. The flow solver was coupled with six degree-of-freedom equation to predict the trajectory of free-flight rockets. For the validation, calculations were made for the impinging jet with inclined plate. The rotor downwash of helicopter was calculated and applied to simulation of air-launched rocket. It is shown that the rotor downwash has non-negligible effect on the air-launched rocket and its plume development.