Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Computational Aerodynamics Study of Stores Separation

Trajectory from a Subsonic Fighter Aircraft
Student: Muhammad Aizat Bin Abd Halim
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tholudin Bin Mat Lazim
Introduction
For a fighter aircraft, external stores are always
being carried to accomplish its mission. When a
store is installed externally especially under the
wing, the presence of the store near the wing will
cause aerodynamic interference that must be
accounted for. The key purposes of this study was
to recognize the interference effect on aerodynamic
characteristics of a subsonic fighter aircraft with the
presence of an external store installation and the
trajectory of the stores after being release.

speed also increases the Reynolds Number which

will delay the flow separation behind the aircraft and
thus the stall point delayed at higher angle of attack.
When comparing the simulated result with the wind
tunnel experiment to validate the analysis, the trend
line pattern of the graph for all configurations are
almost the same but it differs in values as it deviates
after 9 at angle of attack. Both stalls around 12 at
angle of attack.

Project Objectives
The objectives of this project is to investigate the
effect of stores attachment and release of a generic
Aermacchi MB339 subsonic fighter aircraft using
CFD simulation. In addition to that, the 6 DOF
motion of store will be studied using CFD
simulation.

Figure 1 front view bomb release

Methodologies

References

The basic principle on this study is preparation of

the model of the aircraft, generate the computational
grid, and applying boundary condition. Then, solve
the simulation and post processing using Ansys.

[1] Abdah, M. H. (2015). Wind Tunnel Experimental

Study on Aerodynamics Interference of External
Stores Attachment on Aircraft Wing. Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia.

Result and Achievement

Results obtained from the simulation experiment
show that the different configurations of attachment
of external stores on the wing produce some change
in aerodynamics loads such as lift, drag and pitching
moment. This is due to the interference effect of the
store to the flow through the wing. These loads
increase as the number of stores increases. However,
the store attachments does not significantly affect
the stall angle of the aircraft. The same goes with the
velocity of the wind when it was change from 30
ms-1 to 174.5 ms-1 or Mach 0.5, the value of Cl and
Cd are not affected as the drag and lift are
proportional to the velocity. However, increasing of

[2] Marco L. (February 9, 2005). Best practice

guidelines for handling Automotive External
Aerodynamics with FLUENT. Version 1.2,
Fluent Deutschland GmbH, Birkenweg 14a,
64295 Darmstadt/Germany.
[3] Panagiotopoulos, E.E. and Kyparissis, S.D.
(2006) CFD Transonic Store Separation
Trajectory Prediction with Comparison to Wind
Tunnel Investigations, International Journal of
Engineering, Vol 3, 2006
[4] Spahr, H. W. (1975). Theoretical Store
Separation Analyses of a Prototype Store.
Journal of Aircraft, 12(10), 807-811. doi:
10.2514/3.598