ALBERT

Description: Efforts are currently underway to increase the capacity of airports by use of closely-spaced parallel runways. If such an objective is to be achieved safely and efficiently during both visual and instrument flight conditions, it will be necessary to develop more precise methods for the prediction of the motion and spread of the hazard posed by the lift-generated vortex-wakes of aircraft, and their uncertainties. The purpose of the present study is to relate the motion induced in vortex filaments by turbulence in the ambient flow field to the measured turbulence in the flow field. The problem came about when observations made in the two largest NASA wind tunnels indicated that extended exposure of vortex wakes to the turbulence in the wind tunnel air stream causes the centers of the vortices to meander about with time at a given downstream station where wake measurements are being made. Although such a behavior was expected, the turbulence level based on the maximum amplitude of meander was much less than the root-mean-squared value measured in the free-stream of the wind tunnel by use of hot-film anemometers. An analysis of the time-dependent motion of segments of vortex filaments as they interact with an eddy, indicates that the inertia of the filaments retards their motion enough in the early part of their travel to account for a large part of the difference in the two determinations of turbulence level. Migration of vortex filaments from one turbulent eddy to another (probably with a different orientation), is believed to account for the remainder of the difference. Methods that may possibly be developed for use in the measurement of the magnitude of the more intense eddies in turbulent flow fields and how they should be adjusted to predict vortex meander are then discussed.