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<p>The poor aerodynamic design of the superstructures of today's Navy ships create a highly turbulent airwake that can make shipboard helicopter operations quite hazardous. This study is part of a longer-term project to tailor airflow over a ship's helicopter deck in order to improve the poor quality of the airflow. This airflow is thought to be largely responsible for several costly blade strike mishaps involving H-46 helicopters during start-up and shut down. Numerous computer simulations were conducted using the Phoenics Computational Fluid Dynamics code to simulate airflow over a backward-facing- step. The latter represents a simple 2-d model of flow behind a typical hangar flight deck combination. In each run a deflector of different size, orientation or porosity was placed in a specific location in an attempt to reduce the size of the recirculation zone, the velocities and the turbulence levels. Of the studies involved, a vertical deflector offset downstream with its lower edge at the top of the step produced the best overall results.
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<br>Subjects: Aeronautics; Safety measures.; Backward Facing Step; Bluff-body Aerodynamics; Flow Tailoring; Blade Strike; Operating Envelopes</div>
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Woolman, Scott G.</div>
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