STUDY OF AIRCRAFT WAKE VORTEX BEHAVIOR NEAR THE GROUND

Aircraft wake vortices have been modeled using an unsteady, two-dimens ional laminar (constant eddy viscosity) approximation of the Navier-St okes equations, to study the influence of ground coupling, stratificat ion, and crosswind on vortex system behavior and decay. Initialization and boundary conditions are developed and implemented systematically for a nonuniform grid representation of the semi-infinite domain conta ining a vortex pair, Subsequently, the physics of wake vortex interact ions with the ground for different types of surface weather conditions are discussed.