Professor Ieuan Owen (University of Lincoln)
Location: Stephenson Building, room F1 (first floor)
Time/Date: 20th June 2013, 15:15 - 16:15
As navies around the world become more reliant on helicopters operating from single-spot vessels, such as frigates and destroyers, so the availability of the aircraft, particularly in poor weather conditions, becomes more important. However, ships which operate with maritime helicopters are not designed with the airflow over the landing deck in mind and as a result the pilot workload required to land the aircraft is higher, and operational envelopes are more restricted, than they need to be. Bearing in mind that the helicopter is probably the most effective and versatile tactical system on the ship, this is a serious limitation. The main reason that the operation of the helicopter is not adequately recognised in the design process is that it has not been possible to quantify the effect of the superstructure aerodynamics on the helicopter until the ship has been built and helicopter landing trials have been conducted.
Professor Owen has been at the forefront of international efforts to understand better the environment in which maritime helicopters have to operate, particularly the interaction of the aircraft with the highly unsteady airflow around the ship. Computational Fluid Dynamics has been used to compute the unsteady airflow over a realistic ship, then flight mechanics modelling and flight simulation is used to 'fly' a helicopter to a ship in windy conditions to evaluate the aerodynamic profile of the ship. This means that the ship geometry can be evaluated at the design stage, and not after the ship has been built, as it is now. The research has been funded, through various contracts, by EPSRC, BAE Systems and the UK MoD, and has been carried out in collaboration with defence agencies in Canada and the US.
Ieuan Owen is Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Lincoln. He joined Lincoln in 2011 after spending 28 years as an academic at the University of Liverpool where he rose through the ranks from Lecturer to Professor, and Head of Department and Dean of Faculty.
Published: 20th May 2013