CARRYING SYSTEM OF THE GROUND-EFFECT VEHICLE OF "TANDEM" SCHEME AND ITS AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS
PURPOSE. The work deals with the justification of the proposed by the authors aerodynamic configuration of the carrying system of the wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) craft and the study of its aerodynamic characteristics. METHODS. Based on the analysis of known ground effect vehicle aerodynamic configurations and their features the authors propose an original aerodynamic configuration of the WIG craft carrying system. Aerodynamic studies are performed on the basis of a computational experiment using the ANSYS software package. The article presents the formulation of the problem, boundary conditions and the features of building a mathematical model of carrying system flow in ANSYS with the justification of the selected approaches. RESULTS AND THEIR DISCUSSION. The article presents some results of studying aerodynamic characteristics of the WIG craft using the proposed carrying system. The aerodynamic characteristics of the proposed configuration, their dependence on the main flight parameters such as the angle of attack and the altitude of flight, the possibility to control their values by the deflection of control surfaces are assessed on the basis of the obtained data. Consideration is also given to the features of flow around the carrying system that ensure its high load-carrying properties and continuous flow around at significant carrying surface angles against the incoming flow. The presented results allow to evaluate the possibilities to implement design tasks which serve the basis for the target to form the proposed aerodynamic configuration of the carrying system. CONCLUSIONS. The proposed aerodynamic configuration provides a wide range of WIG flight operation speeds as well as the possibility to fly at sufficiently low speeds. The low speeds of WIG horizontal flight allow to reduce the transition speed to the flight mode at taking-off and to the mode of static air cushion and aquaplaning at landing, which enables maneuvering with smaller turning radii in the horizontal plane when flying on the route.