An investigation of ship airwakes using Detached-Eddy Simulation

James S. Forrest
*
, Ieuan Owen
Department of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 March 2009
Received in revised form 5 June 2009
Accepted 5 November 2009
Available online 12 November 2009
Keywords:
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Airwake
Detached-Eddy Simulation
Frigate
Bluff-body ow
Validation
a b s t r a c t
Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations of ship airwakes have been performed using Detached-Eddy
Simulation (DES) on unstructured grids. A generic simple frigate shape (SFS2) and a Royal Navy Type 23
Frigate (T23) have been studied at several wind-over-deck (WOD) conditions. A comprehensive valida-
tion exercise has been performed, comparing CFD results of the airwake calculated for the SFS2 with high
quality wind tunnel data provided by the National Research Council of Canada. Comparisons of mean
quantities and velocity spectra show good agreement, indicating that DES is able to resolve the large-
scale turbulent structures which can adversely impact helicoptership operations. An analysis of the air-
wake ow topology at headwind and Green 45 conditions highlights the dominant ow features over the
ight deck and it is shown that signicant differences exist between the two WOD angles. T23 airwake
data has been compared to full-scale experimental results obtained at sea. It is shown that the inclusion
of an atmospheric boundary layer velocity prole in the CFD computations improves the agreement with
full-scale data. Qualitative comparison between the simple frigate shape and T23 airwakes shows that
large-scale ow patterns are similar; but subtle differences exist, particularly at more oblique WOD
angles.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The launch and recovery of helicopters to naval ships poses sig-
nicant challenges for the pilot. Landing decks are typically small
and are often moving due to the pitch, roll, and heave motions of
the ship. Air passing over the ships superstructure due to a combi-
nation of its forward speed and the prevailing wind causes the for-
mation of a region of disturbed ow over the ight deck known as
the ship airwake. Due to bluff-body ow separation and the com-
plex interaction of unstable separating shear layers and vortices,
the airwake contains time-varying turbulent structures which
can have a signicant impact on aircraft handling qualities. At cer-
tain wind-over-deck (WOD) conditions the airwake can cause suf-
cient pilot workload to reduce the probability of a safe landing to
unacceptable levels. To reduce the risks associated with line pilots
operating helicopters from ships, operators must develop ship
helicopter operating limits (SHOLs) through hazardous and time-
consuming First of Class Flight Trials (FOCFTs) [1].
Modelling and simulation of the ship-helicopter dynamic inter-
face (DI) has been an active area of research in recent years. The
use of ight simulation to aid pilot training for deck landings is
now commonplace, but its effectiveness is highly dependent on
simulator delity. One of the key areas for improvement in this re-
gard is the modelling of ship airwakes. It has been suggested that
high delity piloted ight simulation could also be used to supple-
ment SHOLs obtained at sea [2], providing a much safer alternative
to sea trials and giving the added benet of allowing investigative
ight tests while new ships are still at the design stage. One of the
main barriers to these advances is a lack of condence in the accu-
racy of airwakes currently deployed in ight simulators. The accu-
rate representation of time-varying disturbances resulting from
airwake turbulence is a key factor in replicating workload levels
experienced at sea [3], however this is proving to be a particularly
challenging aspect of DI modelling and simulation.
One approach to modelling ship airwakes is through the use of
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In this method CFD is used to
solve for the ow over the ship geometry, with the resulting veloc-
ity eld data exported to a ight simulation environment as look-
up tables. Early work in this eld solved the steady-state equations
of uid ow [4,5], providing airwakes which consisted of mean
velocity gradients. In [4] turbulent uctuations were applied with-
in the simulator based on local ow gradients, however this can
only be classed as a rst-order approach as the physical processes
responsible for turbulence generation are not represented. It has
been suggested that time-accurate CFD simulations which can cap-
ture the unsteady effects of ship airwake turbulence may provide
the required delity [6,7]. Such computations, which typically re-
quire thousands of hours of CPU time, have recently become feasi-
ble due to advances in computing power and, in particular, the
increased availability of parallel computing. Numerous studies of
0045-7930/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compuid.2009.11.002
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 151 794 4692.
E-mail addresses: james.forrest@liverpool.ac.uk (J.S. Forrest), i.owen@liverpoo-
l.ac.uk (I. Owen).
Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
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Computers & Fluids
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ compui d
time-accurate ship airwakes using the CFD code COBALT have been
performed by Polsky at NAVAIR [8,9] in support of the US Depart-
ment of Defense Joint Shipboard Helicopter Integration Process
(JSHIP) project [10]. Using the JSHIP Dynamic Interface Modeling
and Simulation System (DIMSS), a comprehensive series of simu-
lated ight tests were performed by four pilots ying the UH-
60A Black Hawk to an amphibious assault class (LHA) ship [11].
It was shown that the inclusion of the unsteady component of
the airwake signicantly increased pilot workload during ship-
board manoeuvres. Lee et al. also generated unsteady CFD airwake
data for the LHA using the parallel ow solver PUMA/PUMA2 [12
14]. In these cases the data was used for a shipboard approach and
landing task driven by an optimal control model of a human pilot.
During these studies, it was also found that the time-varying air-
wake effects had an impact on the control activity predicted by
the pilot model.
Although the use of time-accurate airwake data has been shown
to be an important factor in improving the delity of DI simula-
tions, it is equally important that the spatial and temporal charac-
teristics of turbulence introduced to the simulator are represented
accurately. CFD methods are routinely validated using full-scale
experimental data obtained in situ, or model-scale data from the
wind tunnel. However, many of the published airwake studies con-
tain inadequate validation. Where attempts are made to compare
CFD results with experimental data, the comparison is often qual-
itative (e.g. [15]), turbulent characteristics are frequently neglected
(e.g. [16]) and in many cases the analysis is limited to a single WOD
condition (e.g. [4,17]). Sometimes the lack of detail is due to the
sensitive nature of military naval hardware, which means that
there has been a relative lack of high quality experimental data
made available for ship airwake validation studies.
In an effort to develop a ship airwake validation database, and
to facilitate the dissemination of best-practices amongst the DI
simulation community, a collaborative ship airwake modelling
activity was set up under the auspices of The Technical Co-opera-
tion Programme (TTCP) [18]. The simple frigate shape (SFS), a
highly simplied ship geometry, was created to provide an easily
repeatable benchmark case for validating CFD codes. Fig. 1 shows
an updated version of this geometry, the SFS2, with an elongated
superstructure and a pointed bow. The National Research Council
of Canada (NRC) has performed a series of wind tunnel tests on
both geometries. Cheney and Zan [19,20] studied the mean surface
ow topology on a 1:60 scale model of the SFS using oil and pres-
sure tappings; off-body ow was examined using smoke visualiza-
tions. Following this, hot-lm anemometry was used to investigate
the oweld around a 1:100 model of the SFS2. Mean velocity data
and turbulence statistics were obtained at a number of locations
over the ight deck and the forward superstructure; long acquisi-
tion periods also allowed accurate velocity spectra to be derived.
Several authors have published the results of computational
studies on the SFS/SFS2 geometries. Reddy et al. [21] used the com-
mercial CFD code, FLUENT, with the k e turbulence model to
solve the steady-state ow around the SFS on structured grids. Sig-
nicant variations in ow topology were seen for different grid
densities, although grid independence was approached as the cell
count rose above 1 million. Reasonable qualitative agreement with
oil ow visualizations was shown, however the locations of reat-
tachment points and vortices differed from the experiments. Liu
et al. [22] also analyzed the SFS, obtaining inviscid, unsteady re-
sults from mean ow eld computations using non-linear distur-
bance equations (NLDE). Calculations were performed using
parallel processing on structured grids and identied regions of
high turbulence and vortex shedding over the ight deck. As part
of an analysis of rotor loads in ship airwakes, Wakeeld et al.
[23] computed ow over the SFS using a steady-state Navier
Stokes solver. Many of the large-scale ow features seen in the
wind tunnel were replicated by the CFD, although at certain condi-
tions the computational results predicted ow separation over re-
gions of the ight deck which was not observed experimentally.
Roper et al. [5] performed validation studies of both the SFS and
SFS2 before the resultant ship airwake data was integrated into a
piloted ight simulation environment. Solution dependent grid
adaption was used to rene the mesh in areas of large ow gradi-
ents. A comparison of surface pressure coefcients and off-body
velocity components showed reasonable agreement to the NRC
Fig. 1. SFS2 geometry; extent of original SFS geometry shown by darker shading.
Nomenclature
b ship beam (m)
d domain depth (m)
f
b
SST k x eddy-viscosity constant
h hangar height (m)
l deck length (m)
l
s
ship length (m)
r domain radius (m)
Dt

non-dimensionalised time-step
u longitudinal velocity (m/s)
v lateral velocity (m/s)
w vertical velocity (m/s)
x longitudinal distance (m)
y lateral distance (m)
y

non-dimensionalised wall distance

z vertical distance (m)
z
ref
reference height (m)
C
DES
DES length scale constant
I turbulence intensity, normalised by V
1
(%)
L
t
turbulent length scale (m)
Re Reynolds number
St Strouhal number
U local velocity magnitude (m/s)
U
ref
velocity magnitude at reference height (m/s)
V
1
freestream velocity (m/s)
a surface roughness constant
D local grid spacing (m)
D
0
grid spacing in focus region (m)
k
2
second eigenvalue of S
2
X
2
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 657
data for steady-state computations with the realizable k e turbu-
lence model. More recently, Yesilel and Edis [24] showed some
limited improvements to the comparisons presented by Roper,
through the use of unsteady simulations with CFX and FLUENT. Fi-
nally, Syms [25] used the lattice-Boltzmann technique to perform
time-accurate solutions of SFS and SFS2 airwakes. Good agreement
to the experimental data is shown, despite a slight over-prediction
of RMS turbulence.
This paper reports a signicant step forward in DI research by
presenting the results of time-accurate CFD computations of the
SFS2 airwake, computed using Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES).
DES is a relatively new approach to turbulence modelling which
is promising for ship airwake applications due to its ability to
explicitly resolve turbulent structures for massively separated high
Reynolds number ows around bluff bodies [2628]. Its behavior is
similar to Large-Eddy Simulation (LES), but is computationally
cheaper; closer to unsteady Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes (UR-
ANS) in terms of required CPU time. A description of the solution
strategy will be given later in the paper and this will be accompa-
nied by a detailed comparison of the CFD results with the NRC
wind tunnel data. The ship airwake generation technique de-
scribed has also been applied to a Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate;
some limited validation of these airwakes against full-scale ane-
mometer data will be presented. An analysis of the SFS2 and Type
23 Frigate airwake ow topologies will be performed, highlighting
the dominant ow features which contribute to pilot workload
during the ship landing task.
The main purpose of the current study is the generation of time-
accurate ship airwake data for use in the University of Liverpools
HELIFLIGHT simulation environment [29]. Flight trials using this
enhanced airwake model have been performed and pilot com-
ments are encouraging. Some preliminary results have already
been obtained [30,31] and a comprehensive analysis of recent sim-
ulation trial data in terms of pilot control activity and workload
ratings will be presented in due course.
2. Computational details
2.1. Numerical method
Computations were performed using the commercially avail-
able nite-volume code FLUENT [32], employing DES with the
shear stress transport (SST) k x turbulence model for closure.
The DES approach uses a modication to the underlying turbulence
model to allow medium to large-scale turbulent structures to be
resolved in regions where the computational grid is ne enough.
This modication links the turbulent length scale to the local grid
spacing, D, such that levels of eddy-viscosity are suppressed where
D is small. The term which governs the dissipation of turbulent ki-
netic energy in the SST k x model involves the parameter, f
b
,
which is a constant equal to 1 in the standard model, but modied
according to the following expression in the DES implementation
[33]:
f
b

max
L
t
C
DES
D
; 1

1
where L
t
is the turbulent length scale and C
DES
is a constant within
the DES model usually given a value of 0.61 (retained in the current
study). In regions of the ow where D is small (i.e. below the local
turbulent length scale), the value of f
b
is increased above unity,
thus causing an increase in dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy.
It is the resultant decrease in eddy-viscosity which prevents ow
eld perturbations from becoming articially damped by the turbu-
lence model and allows turbulent structures to propagate.
FLUENTs pressure-based NavierStokes solver was used, with a
second-order pressure interpolation scheme. Convective terms
were discretised using a third-order Monotone Upstream-centered
Schemes for Conservation Laws (MUSCL) scheme [34] consisting of
a blended central differencing/second-order upwind formulation.
Time integration was performed implicitly using a second-order
accurate scheme with dual time stepping.
2.2. Solution strategy
Solutions were iterated to steady-state before the unsteady sol-
ver was activated. A baseline time-step of Dt

1:88 10
2
(nor-
malised by freestream velocity and ship beam) was chosen based
on guidelines given in [35] and through comparisons with non-
dimensionalised time-steps used in other DES studies [36,37].
Computations were also performed using time-steps scaled by a
factor of 2 in each direction to test solution sensitivity. Comparison
of mean ow statistics to experimental data showed that changing
the time-step had very little effect on the solution. Spectral analy-
sis of velocity uctuations over the ight deck showed that smaller
time-steps were able to resolve progressively more energy at fre-
quencies above 10 Hz. However, at full-scale the majority of turbu-
lent energy in the airwake is known to be in the range 0.11 Hz and
it is known that disturbances at frequencies above 2 Hz have little
effect on pilot workload [3], therefore the increased computational
expense of the smaller time-step is not justied.
An exercise was performed to test the optimal number of sub-
iterations; this showed that 10 iterations per time-step gave at
least two orders of magnitude drop in the continuity residual
and at least three in the others. Increasing the number of sub-iter-
ations beyond 10 did not increase convergence signicantly and
added considerably to the required run time.
Approximately 23 time units were computed to remove tran-
sients before unsteady sampling began. Flow statistics were then
averaged over the next 90 time units. A complete CFD run con-
sisted of 6000 time-steps, with 4800 used for sampling. Computa-
tions were performed to match the experimental wind directions
which are dened using naval terminology, with winds from star-
board denoted as Green and winds from port as Red. Conditions
were therefore computed for a headwind, Green 45 and Green
90; each run taking approximately 200 h of wall clock time on
32 processors of the University of Liverpools high performance
computing cluster.
2.3. Grid generation and boundary conditions
The SFS2 geometry was placed in the centre of a cylindrical do-
main with a radius r 4:5l
s
, where l
s
is the ship length; the depth
of the domain was set to approximately d 0:75l
s
. This congura-
tion (shown in Fig. 2) was chosen as it allowed the WOD condition
Fig. 2. Schematic showing SFS2 grid conguration.
658 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
to be altered simply by changing the x and y components of free-
stream velocity. The outer, curved, boundary was specied as a
pressure far-eld, both upper and lower surfaces set as walls with
zero shear-stress and the ship surface was modelled as a wall with
a no-slip boundary condition imposed.
The SFS2 is a relatively simple geometry and could easily be
meshed using hexahedral cells on a block-structured grid. How-
ever, the main purpose of these computations was to serve as a val-
idation exercise for DES applied to ship airwakes, with the aim of
applying the same methods to more complex ship geometries.
Ships such as the Type 23 Frigate have superstructures with intri-
cate geometric features which would prove extremely difcult to
mesh using a structured approach. Such geometries are ideally sui-
ted to unstructured meshes as cells can be tightly clustered around
the smaller features and allowed to grow larger away from the ship
where ow gradients are smaller. The SFS2 was therefore meshed
using a hybrid structured/unstructured mesh to test whether satis-
factory results could be obtained using this approach. Some suc-
cess has already been reported using unstructured grids with
DES [38], as the isotropic nature of tetrahedra suits the method
well.
The ship surface was meshed with triangular elements and 15
layers of prisms were grown from the surface to resolve the viscous
boundary layer. Spacing normal to the wall was chosen to give wall
unit values of y

O(10) and an expansion ratio of 1.3 was applied.

The geometry was placed inside an unstructured sub-domain
which was meshed using tetrahedral elements. Size functions were
applied to ensure smooth cell growth away from the superstruc-
ture and also to create a renement region over the ight deck.
This is analogous to Spalarts Focus Region [35], where cells
should be small and, as far as possible, isotropic in the area of inter-
est to fully utilise the power of DES. In regions outside of the sub-
domain a structured meshing approach was employed.
To test grid independence, and in accordance with the guide-
lines in [35], three target grid spacings D
0
were analyzed by
choosing a baseline D
0
and scaling this up and down by a factor
of

2
p
. The test computations were performed for a headwind at
a freestream speed of 40 kts and the grids were denoted A
10:4 10
6
cells, B 5:8 10
6
cells and C 3:3 10
6
cells for
spacings of D
0
=h 4:12 10
2
; 5:83 10
2
and 8:33 10
2
,
respectively, where h is hangar height. The surface mesh for spac-
ing B can be seen in Fig. 3. Time-steps for grids A and C were scaled
linearly with D
0
to ensure that temporal and spatial resolution re-
mained well-balanced. The requirement for a reduction in time-
step with renement of the grid adds further to the computational
time required for runs on the ner grids.
When comparing mean ow quantities over the ight deck for
the three grids little difference was found between the results.
Fig. 4 shows mean velocity magnitude and turbulence intensity
along a lateral line above the ight deck, with wind tunnel data
also plotted for reference. It is clear that none of the grids offer sig-
nicant improvement in comparison to experimental data. The
similarity of the three sets of results, despite the difference in cell
size between them, indicates grid-independent solutions. The
coarsest grid, C, would appear to give satisfactory results in terms
of mean quantities, however it is worth re-iterating that the pur-
pose of these computations is to provide accurate unsteady data
for use in ight simulation. A coarser grid requires a larger time-
step to maintain an appropriate Courant number; for grid C this
would correspond to a solution frequency of 56 Hz. As the output
from these computations would be used to produce unsteady air-
wake data for use in piloted ight simulations, it was felt that a
higher airwake update frequency than this may be required to en-
sure an appropriate level of simulator delity. The run-time and
memory requirements for grid B were within the capability of
the compute cluster, therefore it was decided that grid B would
be used for all subsequent computations to ensure that spatial
and temporal resolutions were adequate.
3. Results and comparison
In this section results from the CFD computations will be com-
pared with wind tunnel data to validate the CFD methodology.
Both qualitative and quantitative comparisons will be made of
Fig. 3. Surface mesh covering the SFS2 and the lower wall boundary.
Fig. 4. Comparison of velocity magnitude (a) and turbulence intensity (b) on a lateral line over the ight deck for computational grids A, B and C. Results are normalised by
freestream velocity and ship beam.
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 659
time-averaged ow quantities and velocity spectra at several WOD
conditions. All velocity data is normalised with respect to the free-
stream velocity magnitude. Distances are dened relative to the
airwake origin (located at the base of the hangar on the ship centr-
eline) with longitudinal, lateral and vertical locations normalised
by deck length, ship beam and hangar height, respectively. The axis
system is dened such that x is positive to stern, y is positive to
starboard and z is positive up.
3.1. Experimental details
The experiments were conducted in the 2 m 3 m low-speed
wind tunnel at the Aerodynamics Laboratory of the National Re-
search Council, Canada. Hot-lm anemometry was used to obtain
uv and uw data consisting of mean velocities and turbulence
intensities along a series of experimental maps over the SFS2
(Fig. 5). Unsteady velocity spectra were also recorded at several
points over the superstructure. The 1:100 scale model was
mounted on a turntable and boundary layer suction was employed
to ensure a uniform incident velocity prole. Fig. 6 shows the scale
model of the SFS2 mounted inside the wind tunnel.
3.2. Reynolds number dependence
The SFS2 geometry is a bluff-body, consisting of rectangular
surfaces and sharp edges. It is generally assumed that the owover
such structures is insensitive to Reynolds number, so the ow
topology at full scale should be replicated at model scale. Conse-
quently, all CFD runs were performed at full scale, equivalent to
a Reynolds number of 2:26 10
7
where ship beam, b, is used as
the characteristic length. However, to test Reynolds number sensi-
tivity a single headwind case was computed to match the wind
tunnel conditions, at a Reynolds number of 6:58 10
5
. It was
found that the ow patterns were essentially the same, with some
slight differences in the location of features such as reattachment
points and vortex cores. This is illustrated in Fig. 7, where the cen-
Fig. 5. Location of experimental maps during wind tunnel testing. Black dots indicate spectra recording points. Distance along deck measured from the hangar given in
percent.
Fig. 6. SFS2 model mounted inside the NRC 2 m 3 m low-speed wind tunnel (image courtesy of NRC, reprinted with permission).
660 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
tres of the recirculation bubbles are indicated; the model scale case
being below and slightly aft the location of the full scale case. Sim-
ilarly, owis shown to reattach to the deck slightly earlier at model
scale, at 45% of deck length compared to 49% at full scale. These ef-
fects are not anticipated to have a signicant impact on the data
comparison exercise, although subtle differences in the location
of dominant ow features such as vortices or shear layers can af-
fect agreement when plotting at a limited number of data points.
3.3. Comparison to experimental data
Data plots have been drawn along a lateral line located at Map
1c/3c in Fig. 8 for comparison. The line is located at 50% of the
ight deck length, at hangar height, and spans the equivalent of
two beam widths. Many such plots have been studied and show
similar trends; this location was chosen as it represents the region
closest to where a helicopter would be hovering during a deck
landing.
Fig. 8 shows mean velocity components and turbulence intensi-
ties for the headwind case. A reduction in longitudinal velocity can
be seen towards the centreline, indicating that the plotting location
intersects the wake behind the hangar. A corresponding downdraft
is also seen, showing that the ow separated from the hangar roof
is heading down towards the deck. The slight asymmetry shown in
the experimental results and as computed by Syms [25] is not evi-
dent in the present computations. However, all of the trends exhib-
ited in the wind tunnel data are replicated by the CFD and, in most
locations, excellent agreement is shown. Studying the turbulence
data in Fig. 8, again the trends are in agreement although there
is some discrepancy, particularly in the longitudinal component.
The experimental data shows that the longitudinal turbulence is
approximately 5% higher than the other two components over
the ight deck. This is not seen from the CFD results, where the
x-component is only slightly higher. Overall though, the agreement
for the headwind case is very good, with turbulence intensity lev-
els matched well, particularly in the lateral and vertical directions.
As the wind direction changes from a headwind around to a
Green 45 condition (wind at 45 from starboard), the ow pattern
over the deck is altered dramatically. Weak vortical structures are
seen to appear over the superstructure as the wind moves off the
bow, before strengthening considerably and impacting the ight
deck as the wind reaches Green 30 [19]. At Green 45, ow over
the ight deck is dominated by separation fromthe windward deck
edge and a vortical structure is formed from the upper corner of
the windward edge of the hangar. These conditions prove challeng-
ing for numerical methods to predict as the off-body ow patterns
are sensitive to the shear layer separation angles. Although separa-
tion points are generally xed by the sharp edges, strong stream-
line curvature in the separating shear layer is difcult for eddy-
viscosity based turbulence models to capture and this causes dif-
culty in obtaining accurate predictions of shear dominated ow
trajectories [39].
A comparison between CFD and wind tunnel results for a Green
45 WOD condition is shown in Fig. 9. Velocity components are
compared in Fig. 9 and, while qualitatively the trends are well cap-
tured by the CFD, there are some obvious differences in both the u
and v components. A similar level of disagreement in the lateral
velocity component is also seen in Syms computations [25]. Inter-
estingly, disagreement is seen all the way out to y/b = 1, indicating
that ow is approaching the ship from slightly different directions
between the CFD and wind tunnel. Indeed, when velocity vectors
are plotted, as shown in Fig. 10, it is clear that the incident ow
Fig. 7. Location of recirculation centres (circles) and reattachment points (bold arrows) for CFD calculations at model scale and full scale.
Fig. 8. Headwind mean velocities (a) and turbulence intensities (b) normalised by V1 at 50% deck length, plotted at hangar height. Lateral position normalised by ship beam.
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 661
in the wind tunnel is aligned approximately 5 closer to the ship
centreline than the CFD calculations. It appears that the upstream
ow in the wind tunnel is affected more strongly by the presence
of the ship than in the CFD; this reduces the effective WOD angle
causing two main effects. Firstly, the u and v velocity components
over the starboard side of the ight deck are higher and lower,
respectively, than the CFD results (as seen in Fig. 9). Secondly,
the shear layer separating from the windward hangar edge has a
shallower separation angle in the wind tunnel, meaning that its ef-
fects are seen closer to the starboard deck edge than in the CFD.
This can be seen by the difference in locations of the lateral turbu-
lence intensity peaks in Fig. 9. These peaks are caused by apping
of the shear layer, and while the CFD peak is at the approximate
location y/b = 0.16, the wind tunnel peak is seen at y/b = 0. As
with the headwind case, the longitudinal turbulence component
is under-predicted by the CFD.
Despite the differences identied, the ow eld computed by
CFD is qualitatively very similar to the wind tunnel data. Fig. 11
shows contours of velocity magnitude and turbulence intensity
plotted on experimental Maps 3a3c. The location of the hangar
edge shear layer can be identied by the transition from high to
low velocity ow. As the rear of the deck is approached the shear
layer moves progressively to port and becomes thicker, although
it is slightly closer to starboard in the wind tunnel case, for reasons
described above. The velocity decit behind the hangar is more
pronounced in the CFD results; however the relatively coarse spa-
tial sampling taken in the wind tunnel may mean that local low-
velocity regions are missed.
Only a limited experimental data-set consisting of v and w com-
ponents was available for the Green 90 WOD condition, so com-
parisons are restricted to contour plots. Contours of vertical
velocity and the vertical component of turbulence on Map 6a are
plotted in Fig. 12. Good agreement is shown, with an increase in
the vertical velocity component observed close to the starboard
edge of the superstructure due to ow separation. A corresponding
region of elevated turbulence is seen close to the superstructure
edge, with increasing intensity towards the base of the funnel.
Having performed analysis at headwind, Green 45 and Green
90 WOD conditions it has been shown that the DES-based CFD ap-
proach is able to predict the SFS2 airwake with good accuracy. De-
spite slight differences in the location and orientation of separating
shear layers, the magnitude of the unsteadiness in the ow over
Fig. 9. Green 45 mean velocities (a) and turbulence intensities (b) normalised by V1 at 50% deck length, plotted at hangar height. Lateral position normalised by ship beam.
Fig. 10. Velocity vectors comparing CFD and experimental results for the Green 45 case plotted on a yz plane at x/l = 0.5 (a), an xz plane at y/b = 0 (b) and an xy plane at
z/h = 1 (c).
662 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
the ight deck is well captured; which is of prime importance in
creating a realistic ship airwake model for ight simulation.
3.4. Spectral characteristics
Plots of Power Spectral Density (PSD) are shown in Figs. 13 and
14, where velocity data has been recorded at points on Map 1c and
Map 2a (see Fig. 5), respectively. The experimental data has been
scaled using the Strouhal number to match the full-scale CFD con-
ditions. Spectral characteristics are extracted from the CFD data
using a fast Fourier transfrom (FFT) algorithm.
At the spectra point on Map 1c (located at a distance
x=l 0:5; y=b 0:4 and a height of z=h 0:75 above the deck)
agreement between CFD and wind tunnel data is very good, both
in terms of frequency content and power. The longitudinal velocity
component (Fig. 13a) exhibits a gradual drop-off in the range 0.2
Fig. 11. Contours of velocity magnitude (a) and turbulence intensity (b) for the Green 45 case.
Fig. 12. Contours of vertical velocity (a) and turbulence intensity (b) for the Green 90 case.
Fig. 13. Power Spectral Density plots of longitudinal (a) and lateral (b) velocity components recorded at Map 1c spectra point.
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 663
0.3 Hz, with the CFD results matching the experimental gradient
very well despite a small power decit in the CFD data between
0.7 and 0.9 Hz. The lateral component (Fig. 13b) shows a steady in-
crease in power to a small peak at 0.9 Hz before dropping off; again
the CFD matches both characteristics well.
The spectra point on Map 2a is located behind the funnel, di-
rectly above the hangar on the ship centreline at a height
z=h 1:38 above the deck. Fig. 14 shows a denite peak in the
lateral PSD plot at 0.80.9 Hz indicating the possibility of weak
shedding from the funnel which, in effect, is a truncated rectan-
gular cylinder. This corresponds to a Strouhal number of approx-
imately St = 0.12, using funnel width as the characteristic length.
This is similar to the values reported by other researchers for
rectangular cylinders in cross-ow [4042]. However, compared
to these studies, the turbulence levels incident on the funnel
and the Reynolds number are much higher in the present ship
airwake computations; the fact that the funnel is truncated
rather than of innite span will also undoubtedly affect the sep-
aration characteristics, thus impacting the shedding frequency. It
is encouraging to see that the CFD technique is able to pick up
the shedding and match the wind tunnel results well, despite
the fact that the computational mesh is not optimised for de-
tailed analysis of the funnel wake.
4. Ship airwake ow topology
This section will identify the mechanisms responsible for the
generation of large-scale turbulent structures over the ight deck
and highlight the dominant ow features which are expected to
impact upon helicoptership operations.
4.1. Headwind
At the headwind condition ow separates from the front edge
of the superstructure, resulting in high levels of shear and the
formation of turbulent eddies which are convected downstream
towards the funnel. Figs. 1517 illustrate this clearly, in particu-
lar Fig. 17 which uses the k
2
criterion [43] to identify the loca-
tion of vortex cores (only contours with a value k
2
6 0 are
plotted). The value k
2
is the second eigenvalue of S
2
X
2
, where
S and X are the symmetric and anti-symmetric parts of the
velocity gradient tensor, respectively. Values of k
2
below zero
show the presence of a vortex core, with increasingly negative
Fig. 14. Power Spectral Density plot of the lateral velocity component recorded at
Map 2a spectra point.
Fig. 15. Contours of mean (top) and instantaneous (bottom) velocity magnitude for a headwind, plotted on a plane at z=h 1:15 above the deck.
664 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
values indicating stronger vortices. It is also worth noting the
signicant differences between the mean and instantaneous
ow-elds; further evidence of the highly unsteady nature of
the ow. The separated region re-attaches to the superstructure
at approximately 3 hangar heights downstream of the front
edge, although the exact location is transient due to apping
of the re-attaching shear layer.
The strength of the vortical structures appears to diminish as
they travel down the superstructure, but the ow is then re-
energised as it encounters the funnel. Fig. 17 shows the turbu-
lent eddies shed from the sharp edges of the rectangular funnel
and the instantaneous contours of Fig. 15 show the resultant
asymmetric wake in the lee. As discussed in Section 3.4, this is
evidence to suggest that this structure exhibits coherent vortex
shedding. At high hover over the ight deck a helicopter would
be above the hangar roof and directly behind the funnel, there-
fore the turbulent structures shed from the funnel would be
likely to adversely affect handling qualities in this situation.
As ow approaches the ight deck it separates from the
superstructure at the top and sides of the hangar, forming a
3D recirculation bubble in the lee of the hangar. The separation
is less severe than that experienced at the front edge of the
superstructure, resulting in weaker shear layers and a corre-
sponding reduction in the strength of turbulent eddies produced
by this separation. Nonetheless, the instabilities in these separat-
ing ows is the dominant mechanism for turbulence generation
Fig. 16. Contours of mean (top) and instantaneous (bottom) velocity magnitude for a headwind, plotted on a plane at y=b 0.
Fig. 17. Instantaneous contours of k2 indicating the presence of vortex cores for a headwind, plotted on a plane at z=h 1:15 (top) and y=b 0 (bottom).
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 665
over the ight deck, in addition to the coherent structures shed
from the funnel.
4.2. Green 45 wind
Flow features at Green 45 are signicantly different to the
headwind condition. As the freestream encounters the starboard
corner of the superstructure two vortices are formed (Fig. 18);
one aligned laterally with the front edge of the superstructure,
the other oriented longitudinally along the windward superstruc-
ture edge which then widens as it approaches the funnel. This ow
pattern was also observed by Cheney and Zan
1
[19] as shown in
Fig. 19.
The longitudinal vortex is broken up as it passes over the funnel,
but the ow passing up and over the starboard side of the super-
structure causes a secondary vortex to form between the longitu-
dinal superstructure edge and the funnel. This is illustrated in
Fig. 20, where instantaneous and time-averaged contours of k
2
are plotted on a series of y-z slices. Again, the mean and instanta-
neous ow-elds show signicant differences; high strength vorti-
cal structures are present throughout the wake in Fig. 20, but
largely disappear in the average. This highlights the complex and
chaotic nature of the separated ow over the superstructure. The
secondary vortex located to the starboard side of the funnel is pres-
ent in both diagrams, indicating that it is a relatively stationary
structure.
Fig. 21 shows iso-surfaces of k
2
over the ight deck, with three
distinct ow features highlighted. Feature (a) is the starboard
deck-edge vortex, formed as ow travelling along the lower star-
board side of the superstructure meets freestream ow at the star-
board deck edge. The top of this structure is roughly in line with
the hangar, reaching its maximumheight in the middle of the ight
deck. Feature (b) is the starboard hangar edge shear layer, which is
formed as the ow attached along the starboard edge of the super-
structure separates from the vertical edge of the hangar. In CFD
animations this feature is seen to be unsteady in nature, with a
apping motion commonly seen in bluff-body separation. This is
a major contributing factor to turbulence over the ight deck, par-
ticularly in regions below the hangar. Feature (c) is the secondary
superstructure vortex identied above, which appears to break up
and shed helical vortical structures as it encounters the ight deck.
This ow feature is responsible for most of the turbulence encoun-
tered over the ight deck at locations above hangar height and
would therefore pose signicant difculties to rotorcraft operating
to and from such a ship.
The interactions between the ow features identied above re-
sult in a highly complex, unsteady ow-eld over the ight deck.
Compared to the turbulent structures observed for the headwind,
the Green 45 condition produces larger vortical structures with
higher strength (Fig. 22). The impact of this is likely to be turbulent
uctuations with larger spatial scales and higher velocities. This is
conrmed through a comparison of Figs. 8 and 9, which show that
turbulence intensities over the ight deck peak at approximately
20% for the headwind as opposed to 30% for a Green 45 wind.
5. Type 23 Frigate
Following successful validation of the CFD approach with the
SFS2 geometry, the same methodology was applied to a Type 23
Frigate (T23), which is a class of warship currently in service with
the UK Royal Navy. A picture of the T23 is shown in Fig. 23 and the
Fig. 18. Iso-surfaces of k2 0 indicating the location of vortex cores over the superstructure for a Green 45 wind.
1
Although Cheney and Zan studied the SFS1 which has no pointed bow and a
shorter superstructure (Fig. 1), for qualitative comparisons the SFS1 and SFS2
geometries can be expected to exhibit similar ow features.
Fig. 19. Smoke ow at Green 45 observed during NRC wind tunnel tests of the
SFS1 geometry, indicating superstructure vortices (image from Ref. [19], reprinted
with permission).
666 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
Fig. 22. Instantaneous contours of k2 indicating the presence of vortex cores for a Green 45 wind, plotted on a plane at z=h 1:15 (top) and y=b 0 (bottom).
Fig. 21. Iso-surfaces of k2 0 indicating the location of instantaneous vortex cores over the ight deck for a Green 45 wind. Labelled ow structures: deck edge vortex (a);
hangar edge shear layer (b); and superstructure edge vortex (c). Outline of SFS2 shown by dashed line.
Fig. 20. Contours of k2 indicating the presence of vortex cores for a Green 45 wind; instantaneous (a) and time-averaged (b).
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 667
CAD geometry used is shown in Fig. 24. The geometry is clearly far
more complex than the SFS2 and part of the motivation for the
study was to determine whether this increase in geometric delity
resulted in a noticeable difference in airwake topology. It was
anticipated that the large notch in the starboard edge of the T23
hangar may, for certain Green winds, generate ow features not
seen on the SFS2. Experimental data was available for validation
of the T23 airwakes, in the form of full-scale anemometer readings
taken at sea.
5.1. Experimental details
Full-scale at-sea testing of the T23 airwake were performed by
DRA (now QinetiQ) on board HMS Iron Duke in 1994. Mean veloc-
ities and turbulence data behind the hangar was obtained using 3-
axis propeller anemometers mounted on a mast at heights of
approximately z=h 0:5, 1.0 and 1.5 above the deck. Longitudinal
and lateral anemometer locations are shown in Fig. 25. It is known
that such anemometers can have a signicant in-built inertia and
suffer attenuation at frequencies above 0.2 Hz [44], so this should
be considered when comparing turbulent quantities. Data were
made available at Green 10, Green 30 and Green 90 WOD condi-
tions. Only comparisons at Green 10 will be presented here for
brevity, although computations were also performed at headwind
and Green 45 so that qualitative comparisons to the SFS2 airwakes
can be made.
5.2. Computational details
As the overall dimensions of the T23 are very similar to the
SFS2, all numerical details (grid spacing, time-step) were retained
from the SFS2 computations. Due to the increased geometric com-
plexity, the cell count was higher than the SFS2 grid at 7:4 10
6
cells. Computations were performed in exactly the same way as
for the SFS2, as described in Section 2.2.
Due to the fact that the full-scale experimental data was ob-
tained at sea, it was necessary to model the effects of the earths
atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) during the T23 CFD computa-
tions. The ABL causes a velocity reduction near the sea surface
which can be modelled using the following power law [45]:
U U
ref
z
z
ref

a
2
where U
ref
is the velocity at the reference height, z
ref
, and a is a con-
stant which depends on the surface terrain. In the current study val-
ues of U
ref
35 m=s and z
ref
300 m were used, giving a wind
speed of approximately 50 kts at the nominal T23 anemometer
height. The constant, a, was set to 0.13 as recommended by Couni-
han [45] for an ocean surface. During the present study the mod-
elled effects of the ABL were limited to an appropriate velocity
prole; the effects of increased freestream turbulence were not in-
cluded. It was decided that runs would be performed with and
without the effect of the ABL to determine what, if any, impact this
had on the nature of the airwake. Polsky [46] has shown that for
beam winds (90 from port or starboard) the inclusion of the ABL
can signicantly improve agreement with full-scale experimental
data.
5.3. Results
Figs. 26 and 27 show a comparison of velocity components and
turbulence intensities for the Green 10 WOD condition. Map 1a is
closest to the hangar and Map 1c is furthest aft. Due to the small
number of experimental locations from the full-scale data it is dif-
cult to draw denitive conclusions on agreement between data-
sets. However, it is clear that the trends shown by the at-sea data
are well matched by CFD. This is all the more remarkable given the
fact that the CFD geometric model is simplied, lacking many of
the small-scale features of the full sized ship (masts, netting, an-
tenna arrays).
The two CFD computations predict essentially the same wake
pattern, with the ABL velocities a factor of approximately 0.8 low-
er than the no-ABL results. This is due to the fact that results are
normalised by the velocity at anemometer height. For a uniform
inow prole (i.e. the no-ABL case) at a given freestream condition
the velocity over the ight deck will be the same as the anemom-
eter velocity, but where the ABL is included ow velocities over the
ight deck will be reduced by an amount dependent on the vertical
distance between the deck and the anemometer. It is interesting to
note, however, that the full-scale results show normalised longitu-
dinal velocities approaching unity at the windward edge of the
deck, despite these locations being signicantly below the ane-
mometer. It is entirely possible that the wind conditions on the
day of the at-sea testing differed from the generic power-law
Fig. 23. A Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate.
Fig. 24. Type 23 Frigate CAD geometry used for current study.
Fig. 25. Anemometer locations during at-sea Type 23 airwake testing.
668 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
ABL model used within the CFD computations. Air ow over the
ight deck is a result of ship forward speed, prevailing wind, or a
combination of both. Ship motion causes uniform ow, whereas
the wind is subject to an ABL prole; the vector sum of both com-
ponents will change the effective power-law exponent. It is there-
fore expected that this will account for a certain amount of
variance between CFD and at-sea results.
The turbulence data follows a similar pattern; the intensity is
slightly lower for the ABL case in most locations due to the lower
incident velocities. A corresponding improvement in agreement
with full-scale data is found, consistent with Polskys ndings [46].
This reduction in airwake turbulence for the ABL computations is
an important nding, as it shows that turbulent uctuations in the
airwake are sensitive to such boundary conditions. Therefore, it is
recommended that ship airwake computations for ight simulation
purposes should include an appropriate ABL velocity prole in order
to improve realism.
5.4. Flow topology
Comparing Figs. 16 and 28 it can be seen that the headwind
condition displays very similar characteristics to the SFS2 ow-
eld over the ight deck. The main effect of the geometric features
on the superstructure is to retard the ow so that velocities around
the ight deck are slightly lower than seen on the SFS2. Neverthe-
less, the mean and instantaneous velocity elds shown in Fig. 28
Fig. 26. Longitudinal (a), lateral (b) and vertical (c) velocity components in the Type 23 Frigate airwake plotted at hangar height for a Green 10 condition.
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 669
exhibit the same large-scale ow features as seen for the SFS2. One
difference worth noting is the effect of the large mast to the fore of
the T23, which appears to shed vortical structures. These propa-
gate downstream, but are at a height unlikely to affect helicopter
operations.
There are some clear differences between the T23 and SFS2 air-
wakes at Green 45. Fig. 29 shows the effect of the windward han-
gar notch on the mean ow pattern over the deck. Flow curves
smoothly around the vertical hangar edge of the SFS2, whereas
on the T23 the presence of the notch causes the formation of a vor-
tex which is aligned more longitudinally with the deck than the
freestream. This suggests that relatively small-scale geometric
features can give rise to differences in large-scale stationary (in a
time-averaged sense) ow patterns over the ight deck. It should
be emphasised that in both cases these features are highly unstea-
dy in nature, with both causing the production of turbulence over
the deck. However, it is known that both mean and uctuating
velocities over the deck can contribute to pilot control strategy
during landing [31], so it is important that large-scale mean ow
features are captured.
Another difference between the T23 and SFS2 airwakes at Green
45 is that there are fewer identiable, coherent ow features over
the ight deck in the T23 case. This is in part due to the hangar
being set back from the deck edge, resulting in a deck edge vortex
Fig. 27. Longitudinal (a), lateral (b) and vertical (c) turbulence intensities in the Type 23 Frigate airwake, plotted at hangar height for a Green 10 condition.
670 J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673
which is less pronounced. The staggered vertical hangar edge also
appears to lessen the intensity of the separating shear layer.
A comparison of Figs. 22 and 30 shows that turbulent structures
over the deck are smaller for the T23, although their strength is
comparable to the SFS2 case. The dominant cause of turbulence
generation at this WOD condition is separation from the windward
corner of the hangar; these vortical structures appear to be shed
more uniformly than for the SFS2, possibly due to less interaction
with other large-scale ow features. Fig. 30 also shows that high-
strength vortical structures are concentrated more on the port side
of the deck for the T23, as opposed to the SFS2 case (Fig. 22) where
vorticity occupies a larger proportion of the ight deck.
6. Summary and concluding remarks
Unsteady computations of the ow over the SFS2 and T23 ships
have been performed using the commercial CFD code, FLUENT. The
use of DES for turbulent closure is shown to be suitable for such
ows due to its ability to capture the large-scale turbulent struc-
tures shed from ship superstructures. Unstructured grids were
used to enable the close control of cell size and to simplify the pro-
cess of meshing complex ship geometries; this approach has
proved successful in these respects.
A comprehensive validation exercise, comparing CFD results for
the SFS2 to wind tunnel data for three WOD conditions has been
described. Mean velocity and turbulence data have been compared
using line plots, contours and vectors, showing good agreement in
most cases. An analysis of PSD plots showed that the computa-
tional method was able to generate levels of turbulent power com-
parable to the wind tunnel, and also matched the frequency roll-off
over the relevant bandwidth. This is essential if CFD generated air-
wake data is to be used for piloted ight simulation of deck landing
tasks.
Airwake data for the T23 was compared to full-scale experi-
mental data, showing good agreement with trends observed at
sea. Computations of airwakes with and without the inuence of
Fig. 28. Contours of mean (top) and instantaneous (bottom) velocity magnitude for a headwind, plotted on a plane at y=b 0.
Fig. 29. Mean pathlines for the Green 45 condition, indicating the separation
characteristics from the windward hangar edge of the SFS2 (a) and the Type 23
Frigate (b). Pathlines coloured by vorticity magnitude.
J.S. Forrest, I. Owen/ Computers & Fluids 39 (2010) 656673 671
an ABL showed that the inclusion of a representative ABL velocity
prole caused lower velocities and a corresponding reduction in
turbulence over the deck. This improved agreement with full-scale
data, particularly in terms of turbulence intensity.
Post-processing of the CFD data allowed extraction of the main
topological ow features for winds from ahead and Green 45. It
was shown that shear layer separation and vortex formation from
sharp edges is the dominant mechanism for turbulence generation
over the ight deck. Signicant differences exist between head-
wind and Green 45 airwakes, with the latter containing turbu-
lence with larger amplitude and spatial scales.
Differences between the SFS2 and T23 airwakes have been
found for the WOD conditions studied. The T23 airwake is shown
to contain smaller turbulent structures with similar strength to
the SFS2 and less complex interactions between large-scale vorti-
cal features are observed. Larger differences exist in terms of the
mean ow pattern over the deck at Green 45, due to the presence
of the T23 windward hangar notch. It is still unclear whether
these differences are signicant enough to be detected by a pilot
during simulated deck trials, indeed the use of a simplied ship
geometry may be adequate for many purposes. However, it has
been shown that the intelligent use of unstructured meshing tech-
niques for complex ship geometries can give an increase in airwake
delity at a modest increase in computational cost. The use of real-
istic geometries for use in CFD airwake simulations is, therefore,
recommended.
Acknowledgements
The rst author is funded by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Award
and by Westland Helicopters Ltd. ANSYS Inc have been most gen-
erous in their assistance. The authors would like to thank Mr Cliff
Addison for invaluable help with compute cluster conguration
and Mr Steven Hodge (BAE Systems) for providing the Type 23
Frigate CAD model. The SFS2 validation data was derived by the
National Research Council Canada, and provided under the aus-
pices of The Technical Co-operation Program (TTCP). The full-scale
Type 23 Frigate validation data was provided by the UK Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL).
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