Effects of Wind on Forward and Turning Flight of Flying Cars Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

We have been using various environments and spaces to meet high transportation demands. However, traffic congestion, deteriorating transportation infrastructure, and environmental pollution have become current social problems. To solve these problems, flying vehicles that use near ground space (NGS) are attracting attention. In order to develop such vehicles efficiently, highly accurate computer simulation technology is required. In this study, computer simulations are performed by coupling fluid and rigid body motions using two calculation methods. One is the moving computational domain method, in which the object and computational domain are moved as a single unit to represent the motion of the object and the flow around the body, and the other is the multi-axis sliding mesh method, in which physical quantities are transferred at the boundaries to reproduce the motion of objects with different motions, such as rotating parts. Because the flying car in the development stage is small and has a shape that obtains thrust from multiple propellers, the insertion of disturbances was considered because of the possible effects of wind on the aircraft during actual flight. In this study, we attempted to clarify the effect of wind on the flying car by performing flight simulations in six patterns, one with no wind and the other with a disturbance inserted that causes a headwind during forward flight and a crosswind during turning flight.