Wake Vortices of Landing Aircraft, in High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering

Abstract

As an unavoidable consequence of lift aircraft generate a pair of counter-rotating and long-lived wake vortices that pose a potential risk to following aircraft. The prescribed aircraft separations during landing to avoid wake vortex hazards contribute significantly to capacity restrictions of large airports. Severe encounters of wake vortices have also been reported during cruise. Wake vortex behavior is largely controlled by the prevailing meteorological conditions and the interaction with the ground. The most important meteorological parameters are ambient wind, wind shear, turbulence, and temperature stratification. The Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) develops wake vortex advisory systems for airports and en route which aim at optimizing the air traffic with respect to the measured and predicted wake vortex behavior. As part of such systems simple probabilistic wake vortex prediction models are required that predict wake vortex behavior accurately, robust, and fast. Highly resolving large eddy simulations (LES) conducted on the SuperMUC supercomputer provide valuable insights in the physics of wake vortex behavior under various atmospheric conditions. These LES contribute indispensable guidance for the development of the real-time/fasttime wake vortex models.