An Aerodynamic Analysis of a Spinning Missile with Dithering Canards Tor A. Nygaard* and Robert L. Meakin† Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 Abstract cousandmissileroll-rateeffects. Theaerodynamicper- Agenericspinningmissilewithditheringcanardsis formanceofthemissileasafunctionofangle-of-attack used to demonstrate the utility of an overset structured and canard pitching sequence is also considered. A grid approach for simulating the aerodynamics of novel analytical method for describing these perfor- rolling airframe missile systems. The approach is used mance characteristics is given. A brief summary, to generate a modest aerodynamic database for the acknowledgements, and list of references are provided generic missile. The database is populated with at the end of the paper. solutionstotheEulerandNavier-Stokesequations. Itis used to evaluate grid resolution requirements for accurate prediction of instantaneous missile loads and 2. ROLLING AIRFRAME CONFIGURATION therelativeaerodynamicsignificanceofangle-of-attack, canard pitching sequence, viscous effects, and roll-rate The generic rolling airframe missile employed in effects. A novel analytical method for inter- and thepresentworkisreferredtoasFM-3. TheFM-3mis- extrapolation of database results is also given. silehasahemisphericalnose,cylindricalbody,fourfins, andtwocanards. Detailsofthegeometriccomplexityof the missile are illustrated in Figure 1. 1. INTRODUCTION Simulation of the aerodynamics of rolling airframe missilesystemsposesignificantchallengesforanycom- a) putational approach. Applications of practical interest are characterized by complex vortical flow and shock structures. In addition, the geometry of these missile groove systemscanbeverycomplex,involvingrelativemotion between missile body and control surfaces. The flows arealsoinherentlyunsteady. Theaimofthispaperisto b) demonstrate the utility of Chimera1 overset structured shaft grid domain decomposition methods in the efficient generation of high fidelity aerodynamic simulations for this class of problems. cut-out A generic rolling airframe missile is defined in order to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of c) an overset grid approach. The paper provides a techni- cal description of the generic missile and the specific computational methods here employed, and complete discussions of the case conditions and corresponding simulation results. The set of simulations considered are designed to demonstrate the level of resolution Figure 1. FM-3 missile geometry. a) Top view of required for accurate prediction of surface loads and to entire missile. b) Fins. c) Close-up of canard. determine the relative aerodynamic significance of vis- * Research Scientist, ELORET Corp., Member AIAA † Senior Research Scientist, U.S. Army AFDD (AMCOM), Senior Member AIAA ThismaterialisdeclaredaworkoftheU.S.Governmentandis not subject to copyright protection in the United States. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1 Thefinsaredesignedtoinducemissilespin,while tance away from the respective surfaces. The directional control is actuated via canard dithering. As constructionofnear-bodygridsandassociatedintergrid the missile spins, the canard pitch position follows an connectivity is a classical Chimera-style decomposition actuator signal with constant pitch rate. The actuator of the near-body domain. It is assumed that near-body signal flip-flops between +/- 1 according to the sign of grids provide grid point distributions of sufficient den- the sum of two sine-waves called the command and sity to accurately resolve the flow physics of interest dither signals. The amplitude of the command signal (i.e., boundary-layers, vortices, etc.) without the need relativetothedithersignaliscalledthecommandlevel, for refinement. This is a reasonable constraint since andreflectsthestrengthoftheattemptedmaneuver. The near-body grids are only required to extend a short dis- command signal is modulated with the roll-rate. The tanceawayfrombodysurfaces. Figure3illustratesthe dithersignalismodulatedwithaditherfrequency. Fig- surface decomposition of the FM-3 missile and shows ure 2 shows the canard pitching algorithm for a com- selected surfaces from the resulting near-body surface mandlevelof100%forthespecifiedroll-rateanddither and volume grids. frequency. The off-body portion of the domain is defined to encompass the near-body domain and extend out to the 3. COMPUTATIONAL METHODS far-field boundaries of the problem. The off-body domain is filled with overlapping uniform Cartesian 3.1 Discretization Method grids of variable levels of refinement, as shown in Fig- ure4fortheFM-3missile. Theoff-bodygridresolution The “near-body” and “off-body” domain partition- amplificationfactorbetweensuccessivelevelsis2. The ingmethoddescribedinReferences2and3isusedhere near-bodyoff-bodypartitioningapproachfacilitatesgrid asthebasisofdiscretizationoftheFM-3missile. Inthe adaptationinresponsetoproximityofbodycomponents approach, the near-body portion of a domain is defined and/ortoestimatesofsolutionerrorwithinthetopologi- toincludethesurfacegeometryofallbodiesbeingcon- cally simple off-body grid system. sidered and the volume of space extending a short dis- Canard Pitching Algorithm 2 Command Dither 1.5 Command+Dither −] h [ Canard Pitch c 1 Pit d e z ali 0.5 m r o N d 0 n a s al−0.5 n g Si ol r −1 nt o C −1.5 −2 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 2. Canard pitching algorithm for roll-rate of 8.75 Hz, dither frequency of 35 Hz, and 100% command level. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2 Level-3 a) Level-2 Level-1 b) near-body grid components Figure 4. FM-3 near-body and off-body partitioning and selected surfaces. 3.2 Solution Method The set of FM-3 missile simulations presented in thispaperrepresentawidevarietyofconditionsandare productsoftheOVERFLOW-D3,5code. OVERFLOW- D is based on version 1.6au of the well known NASA OVERFLOW6 code, but has been significantly enhanced to accommodate moving body applications. The OVERFLOW-D enhancements represent in-core subroutine actuated operations and include the follow- ing capabilities. i. On-the-flygenerationofoff-bodygridsystems. ii. MPI6 enabled scalable parallel computing. c) iii. Automatic load balancing. iv. Aerodynamic force and moment computations. v. General 6-degrees-of-freedom model. vi. Rigid-body relative motion between an arbi- trary number of bodies. vii. Domain connectivity. viii.Solution error estimation. ix. Grid adaptation in response to body motion and/or estimates of solution error. ThemajorityoftheFM-3simulationspresentedin this paperinvolve relativemotion betweengrid compo- Figure 3. FM-3 surface geometry decomposition and nents. The entire missile spins relative to the inertial near-body grids. a) Surface decomposition of missile off-body grid system and the canards dither relative to body. b) Decomposition of canard surfaces and the missile body. The pseudo-code below outlines the selectedsurfacesfromcorrespondinggrids. c)Decom- general procedure used in OVERFLOW-D to carry out positionoffinsurfacesandselectedsurfacesfromcor- such simulations. Of course, the flow equations are responding grids. solved at every time-step during a simulation. In cases Note: Surfacegeometrydecompositionandnear-bodygridgenera- thatinvolverelativemotionbetweenconfigurationcom- tion accomplished using OVERGRID utility from CGT4. ponents, body dynamics and domain connectivity are American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 3 alsoaddressedateachtime-step. InthecaseoftheFM- when each processor assumes the load of at least 250 3 missile, body dynamics simply means the computa- thousand points. Load balancing is an automatic func- tionofaerodynamicloadsandmovingthemissilecom- tion of OVERFLOW-D. ponents according to a control-law. Specifically, the rotational orientation of the missile is positioned as a As indicated in the pseudo-code above, OVER- function of time and the roll-rate. The position of the FLOW-D accommodates solution adaptation based on canardsrelativetothemissilebodyisdeterminedbythe the position of near-body grid components and/or in canard dither algorithm (illustrated in Figure 2). response to estimates of solution error. The off-body gridmanagementschemeallocateslevel-1(finest)reso- lutiongridstoaccommodatesignificantmotionofbody For N time-steps componentsorflowfeaturesbeforethenextadaptcycle. do every step Accordingly, adapt cycles are only required periodi- cally; every 25 to 50 time-steps in a typical unsteady Solve flow equations simulation. For Moving Body Problems - Body dynamics IntheFM-3missilecasesconsideredhere,allflow - Domain connectivity features that are likely to have any significant affect on thesurfaceforcesandmomentsareconfinedtothevol- do every mth step ume of space within a missile diameter of the body itself. These include canard vortices, boundary layer, Adaptive Refinement and key portions of the shock systems. Accordingly, - Error estimation OVERFLOW-Dinputisusedtoallocatelevel-1resolu- - Off-body re-partitioning tion capacity to a distance of 1.5 diameters from the - Solution transfer missile surface, rather than enable adaptation in - Domain connectivity responsetosolutionerror. Aslightsavingsincomputa- tional overhead is thereby gained for the present cases. Pseudo-Code. Solution procedure (with adaptive refinement capability) for unsteady problems that may involve relative motion between component parts. 4. SIMULATION RESULTS A set of FM-3 missile simulations is carried out to Since the missile movement is continuous, the demonstratethelevelofresolutionrequiredforaccurate relativepositionofmanygridcomponentschangeevery prediction of surface forces and moments and to deter- time-step. In order for solution information to be cor- mine the relative aerodynamic significance of viscous rectly exchanged between grids during the simulation, effects, missile roll-rates (W ), canard command levels r the domain connectivity solution must also be continu- (c), and free-stream angles-of-attack (a ). A total of 31 ously updated. This is accomplished automatically by FM-3 simulations form the basis of the material pre- OVERFLOW-D. sentedinthispaperconcerningtheseissues. Theflight conditions for the cases are indicated in Table 1. The The OVERFLOW-D processing rate for static parameters varied to obtain the complete simulation set geometryviscous flowapplications isabout 15m secper are free-stream angle-of-attack, canard pitch command grid-pointpertime-step(300MHzprocessor). Formov- level,andmissileroll-rate. Theothersimulationparam- ing-body problems, the processing rate is somewhat eters indicated in the table are held fixed and are com- problemdependent,butgenerallyfallsintheboundsof mon to all cases considered. 15to18m secpergrid-pointpertime-step. FortheFM- 3spinningmissilecasesconsideredhere,thenumberis Table 1. Simulation Parameters 16.5m secpergrid-pointpertime-step. OVERFLOW-D accommodates problem sizes of more than 2 million M¥ Mach number 1.6 grid-pointsper1gigabyteofmemory. Maximumparal- Re Reynolds number 50· 106 lelefficiency(percentageinhigh90’s)isrealizedwhen W Dither-frequency 35 Hz d the fewest number of processors that can accommodate a Angle-of-attack 0o, 2o, 3o, 4o, 8o, 12o, 15o a given problem in core memory are selected. OVER- c Command level 0%, 100%, 200% FLOW-D can efficiently (i.e., over 70%) make use of W Roll-rate 0 Hz, 8.75 Hz larger numbers of processors for a fixed problem size r American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 4 The general characteristics of the FM-3 flow field 3o, and 8.75 Hz, respectively. A very high resolution are illustrated in Figure 5. Vortices are shed from the gridisusedtodefinethebaselinesolution. Mediumand inboard and outboard tips of the canard and convect coarse solutions are obtained on grids derived from the down the length of the missile interacting with the vis- baseline grid with successively lower levels of spatial cous boundary layer. Away from the influence of the resolution. The qualitative effect of coarsening on the boundary layer, the outboard canard vortices twist surface geometry is shown in Figure 6. A very high approximately 8o around the spinning missile in one fidelitytemporal resolution(viz.,12,000time-stepsper body-lengthoftravel. Ascanbeseeninthefigure,dis- missile revolution) is uniformly employed in all of the ruptions to the boundary layer by the inboard canard viscous simulations. vorticesare draggedthroughnearly45oofrolloverthe sameinterval. TheshockstructureisindicatedinFigure 5b. Theboundarylayergrowthontheuppersurfaceof themissileisalsovisibleinthefigure. Apositiveangle- of-attackandvortex/boundarylayerinteractioncombine to exaggerate the boundary layer thickness down the stream-wise axis of the missile. V1 (fine) Outboard canard Inboard canard vortex vortex V2 (medium) a) V3 (coarse) Vortex/Boundary layer interaction Figure 6. Fine, medium, and coarse grid representa- tions of FM-3 canards and fins. The baseline grid for this case (finest resolution) is comprised of 41 million grid points and is referred to hereafterastheV1(i.e.,“Viscous-1”)grid. Isolatedsur- faces from the V1 grid are shown in Figures 3 and 4. b) The flowcharacteristics illustratedin Figure5 arefrom Figure5. AerodynamicsoftheFM-3spinningmissile asimulationusingtheV1grid. Allgridlengthsreferred with dithering canards. a) Vortex structure. b) Shock to in the following discussion are normalized by the structure. W r = 8.75 Hz,c = 0%,a = 3o. missile body length. Viscous spacing normal to the bodysurfacesis 2.5· 10–6 intheV1grid. Thiscorre- spondstoay+of1foraReynoldsnumberof10million. 4.1 Resolution Requirements This spacing is maintained uniformly across the first 6 cells in the viscous direction and then expanded with a A grid refinement study is used to determine the geometricstretchingratioof1.2toadistanceofapprox- level of spatial resolution needed to accurately predict imately0.015. Themaximumspacingusedinthenear- the integrated FM-3 surface loads. The significance of body grids is approximately equal to the level-1 off- grid resolution is evaluated here by comparing viscous body grid spacing which is 0.0013, or approximately solutionsforthespinningmissilecasedefinedinTable1 0.1% of the body length. with the variable parameters c, a , and W fixed at 0%, r American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 5 The V1 grid is the basis of the medium (V2) and Table 2. Roll-averaged force and moment coefs.* coarse (V3) grids. The V2 grid is obtained by deleting Coefficient Fine (V1) Med. (V2) Coarse (V3) approximatelyeveryotherpointfromtheV1gridinall Cx (axial) 1.17 1.12 1.07 three spatial dimensions and results in a grid with just Cy (side) -7.56e-03 2.76e-03 -1.21e-03 over8millionpoints. Similarly,theV3gridisobtained Cz (normal) 0.461 0.462 0.538 fromtheV2gridbydeletingapproximatelyeveryother Cmx (roll) -1.19e-03 -1.08e-03 -0.94e-03 point from the V2 grid in all three spatial dimensions Cmy (pitch) -6.79e-03 -3.11e-03 -3.45e-02 andresultsinagridwithjustover2millionpoints. The Cmz (yaw) 2.80e-03 3.52e-03 -9.55e-04 foregoing is true subject to the following qualifications. i. Some surface grids require redistribution and/ *Moments are about the missile center of gravity oradditionofgrid-pointstopreservegeometric Figure9),indicateasystematicshifthigherforfinerres- features such as sharp corners through the two olution. The difference between V1 and V2 axial subsequent eliminations of every other point. forces is approximately the same as between the corre- ii. Smoothingisappliedtogeometricfeaturesthat spondingV2andV3results. Clearly,gridconvergence are not adequately resolved by the coarser is not apparent in the computed axial force data. grids. FortheV2grid,smoothingisappliedto thecanardcut-outandthemissilegroove. For Figures10and11breakdowntheaxialforcesinto the V3 grid, the canard cut-out, the canard pressureandviscouscomponents. TheV2andV3solu- shaftandthemissilegrooveareremovedcom- tions are almost identical for the pressure component; pletely. and V1 has a systematic shift to a higher value. The iii. The grid spacing in the surface normal direc- contributiontothisshiftcomesmainlyfromtheaftpart tionfortheV2gridcorrespondsapproximately ofthe missile. Thisregionofthe flowhascomplicated to every other point for the V1 grid, doubling interactions between the expansion waves around the the initial spacing from the wall. boat-tail, shocks around the tail fins, and the boundary iv. The grid spacing in the surface normal direc- layer. The V1 and V2 viscous components to the axial tion for the V3 grid starts at the surface with forcedifferbyapproximately2%ofthetotalaxialforce, the V2 spacing doubled. The stretching ratio slightlylessthanthedifferencebetweentheV2andV3 thereafter is approximately the same as in the results. The total roll-averaged axial forces are shown V2 grid. inTable2. Themediumandcoarsesolutionaxialforces are 4% and 8% lower than for the corresponding fine Considernowthecomputedloadhistoriesobtained solution. The reason grid convergence in axial force is from simulations using the V1, V2, and V3 grids. Fig- not demonstrable via the current set of solutions is not ure7showsthecomputednormalforce(Cz)historyfor clear. ItmaybethatwhiletheV1gridhassufficientres- the three different resolution capacities. The canard olution in the boundary layer, the V2 and V3 viscous pitch angle history is also indicated. The V1 and V2 spacing (double and quadruple that of V1) is not suffi- results are in good agreement, except at maximum cient. canard deflection. At high canard lift, the strong vorti- cesshedfromthecanardsmodifythepressuredistribu- Figure12showsthepitchingmoment(Cmy)about tion on the fuselage and the tail fins. Still, the roll- thecenterofgravityfortheV1,V2,andV3simulations. averagednormalforcesfromV1andV2showninTable Themissilecenterofgravityislocatedapproximatelyat 2 differ by less than 0.3%, indicating near grid conver- the missile midpoint. As is the case for normal force, gence for this quantity. The V3 result differs signifi- the differences in pitching moment are largest at maxi- cantly from V1 and V2. mum canard deflection. Still, the overall agreement is verygood. ThedifferencebetweentheV1andV2roll- ThedatarepresentedinFigures8and9observethe averagedpitchingmomentsareapproximately1%ofthe sameformasthatusedinFigure7. However,Figures8 maximum pitching moment during a revolution. The and9displaysideforce(Cy)andaxialforce(Cx)histo- roll-averaged pitching moments are shown in Table 2. ries, respectively. The side forces exhibit the same The percentage of maximum pitching moment is used effect as for the normal forces at maximum canard here as a measure of grid convergence since the roll- deflection. The roll-averaged side-forces are close to averaged moments are all nearly zero. zero,withadifferencebetweenV1andV2oflessthan 0.02% of the normal force, indicating grid convergence Figure 13 shows the yawing moment (Cmz) about for this quantity also. In contrast, the axial forces (see thecenterofgravity. Theagreementisverygood,with American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 6 Normal Force Coefficient 1.2 15 Fine Medium Coarse 1 Canard Pitch 0.8 s] e e gr e 0.6 D −] h [ z [ 0 Pitc C 0.4 ard n a C 0.2 0 −0.2 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 7. Grid effects in theNORMAL FORCE coefficient. Side Force Coefficient 0.8 15 Fine Medium 0.6 Coarse Canard Pitch 0.4 s] e e 0.2 gr e D −] h [ y [ 0 0 Pitc C d ar −0.2 an C −0.4 −0.6 −0.8 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 8. Grid effects in the SIDE FORCE coefficient. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 7 Axial Force Coefficient 1.4 15 1.2 1 s] e e gr e 0.8 D −] h [ x [ 0 Pitc C0.6 ard n a C 0.4 Fine 0.2 Medium Coarse Canard Pitch 0 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 9. Grid effects in the AXIAL FORCE coefficient. Pressure Axial Force Coefficient 1.2 15 Fine Medium 1.15 Coarse Canard Pitch 1.1 s] e e 1.05 gr e D −] h [ x [ 1 0 Pitc C d ar 0.95 an C 0.9 0.85 0.8 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 10. Grid effects in the AXIAL FORCE coefficient (PRESSURE component). American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 8 Viscous Axial Force Coefficient 0.2 15 Fine Medium Coarse Canard Pitch 0.15 s] e e gr e D −] h [ x [ 0.1 0 Pitc C d ar n a C 0.05 0 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 11. Grid effects in the AXIAL FORCE coefficient (VISCOUS component). Pitching Moment Coefficient − Cg 0.4 15 Fine Medium Coarse Canard Pitch 0.2 s] e e gr e D my [−] 0 0 Pitch [ C d ar n a C −0.2 −0.4 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 12. Grid effects in the PITCHING MOMENT coefficient. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 9 Yawing Moment Coefficient − Cg 0.4 15 Fine Medium Coarse Canard Pitch 0.2 s] e e gr e D mz [−] 0 0 Pitch [ C d ar n a C −0.2 −0.4 −15 00 3300 6600 9900 112200 115500 118800 221100 224400 227700 330000 333300 336600 −Roll Angle [Degrees] Figure 13. Grid effects in the YAWING MOMENT coefficient. some minor differences at maximum canard deflection. at maximum negative canard deflection). The position The difference between the V1 and V2 roll-averaged ofthevorticesareingoodagreementfortheV1andV2 yawing moments are approximately 0.2% of the maxi- solutions. However, the vortex strength is weaker and mum pitching moment during a revolution. The roll- interactionsbetweentheinboardcanardvortexandvis- averaged yawing moments are shown in Table 2. cous boundary layer of the missile body are less appar- ent in the V2 solution. The V3 solution differs The rolling moment (Cmx) is shown in Figure 14. significantly from the V1 and V2 solutions in vortex As expected, the moments are small. The difference position, strength, and vortex/boundary layer interac- between the V1 and V2 roll-averaged rolling moments tion. are approximately 0.03% of the maximum pitching momentduringarevolution. Asteady-statefreelyspin- Thegridrefinementresultssuggestverygoodover- ningmissileshouldhaveanaveragedrollingmomentof allagreementbetweentheV1andV2solutions,though zero. Theoverallpatternhereisinfairagreement,but somedifferencesareapparent. Still,theV2gridoffersa the details differ significantly. The rolling moment is good compromise between solution accuracy and solu- sensitive to flow details around the tail fins, with com- tion throughput for computations designed to predict plexinteractionsbetweentheboundarylayer,thecanard aerodynamicforcesandmoments. Asnotedabove,grid vortices and the shocks, which again depend on the convergence of all forces and moments (except axial accurate prediction of the flow along the entire missile. force and rolling moment) are obtained. Grid convergence for so small a quantity as the rolling moment is beyond the capacity of the present set of 4.2 Viscous Effects grids. A comparative evaluation of very high resolution Theeffectofgridresolutiononthepredictionofthe Navier-Stokes and Euler simulations is used to deter- aerodynamic details of the flow is illustrated in Figure mine the relative significance of viscous effects opera- 15. Figures 15a, 15b, and 15c provide a comparative tive in the range of flight conditions considered for the view of the canard vortices and missile boundary layer FM-3 missile. The case conditions defined in Table 1 interactionviaplotsofhelicitydensity(i.e.,dotproduct aretakenasrepresentativeoftheseflightconditions. A of the velocity and vorticity vectors) at several stations static FM-3 case is first considered where the missile alongthelengthofthemissile(foraroll-angleof268.5o roll-rateiszeroandthecanardsarefixedinneutralposi- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 10