Store Separation Modeling for Rotorcraft Applications

Recent work investigating store separation trajectories from rotorcraft has resulted in the development of a toolbox within a MATLAB computational environment that includes flow field effects from a full-span free wake model for the rotor system. The free wake analysis is coupled to the rigid body store flight dynamics model as a linked library, and is used to update the aerodynamic loads on the store as it moves away from the host aircraft. Auxiliary computational and visualization tools have been added to quantify safe separation events, and the toolbox has been validated with existing public-domain store separation tests conducted by the military. The toolbox contains the added feature of allowing for store separation analyses for accelerated flight maneuvers, potentially expanding flight limits for allowable ranges for safe store separation.