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Turbulence Events Interpreted by Vortex Rolls

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Abstract

The severity of an aircraft encounter with turbulence is most commonly quantified by reference to the aircraft normal acceleration. For an encounter between an idealised aircraft and an idealised vortex, the acceleration vector is equal to the cross product of half the vorticity vector with air velocity vector. More realistic expressions for the aircraft acceleration have been derived in the context of aircraft encounters with wake vortices, and, although the scale of wake vortices is smaller than that of naturally occurring vortices, the broad methodology is broadly applicable.

This chapter looks both at these idealised cases and more practical issues. Many of the issues touched on are dealt with more comprehensively elsewhere. Two issues are addressed which are particular to the interpretation of turbulence using vortex constructs. Firstly, the feasibility of forecasting vortex characteristics is addressed. Secondly, a method of representing the significant statistical properties of anisotropic turbulence is suggested.

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Correspondence to Bob Lunnon .

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Lunnon, B. (2016). Turbulence Events Interpreted by Vortex Rolls. In: Sharman, R., Lane, T. (eds) Aviation Turbulence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23630-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23630-8_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23629-2

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