Civil aircraft vortex wake. TsAGI׳s research activities

This paper provides a review of research conducted in TsAGI (Central AeroHydrodynamic Institute) concerning a vortex wake behind an airliner. The research into this area of theoretical and practical importance have been done both in Russia and in other countries, for which these studies became a vital necessity at the end of the 20th century. The paper describes the main methods and ratios on which software systems used to calculate the evolution of a vortex wake in a turbulent atmosphere are based. Verification of calculation results proved their acceptable consistency with the known experimental data. The mechanism of circulation loss in a vortex wake which is based on the analytical solution for the problem of two vortices diffusing in a viscous fluid is also described. The paper also describes the model of behavior of an aircraft which has deliberately or unintentionally entered a vortex wake behind another aircraft. Approximated results of calculations performed according to this model by means of artificial neural networks enabled the researchers to model the dynamics of an aircraft in a vortex wake on flight simulators on-line.