A data-driven approach to modeling high-density terminal areas: A scenario analysis of the new Beijing,China airspace

Airports are being developed and expanded rapidly in China to accommodate and pro-mote a growing aviation market. The future Beijing Daxing International Airport (DAX) will serve as the central airport of the JingJinJi megaregion, knitting the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei regions together. DAX will be a busy airport from its inception, relieving congestion and accommodating growth from Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), currently the second busiest airport in the world in passengers moved. We aim to model terminal airspace designs and possible conflicts in the future Beijing Multi-Airport System (MAS). We investigate standard arrival procedures and mathematically model current and future arrival trajectories into PEK and DAX by collecting large quantities of publicly available track data from historical arrivals operating within the Beijing terminal airspace. We find that (1) trajectory models constructed from real data capture aberrations and deviations from standard arrival procedures, validating the need to incorporate data on histor-ical trajectories with standard procedures when evaluating the airspace and (2) given all existing constraints, DAX may be restricted to using north and east arrival flows, constraining the capacity required to handle the increases in air traffic demand to Beijing. The results indicate that the termi-nal airspace above Beijing, and the future JingJinJi region, requires careful consideration if the full capacity benefits of the two major airports are to be realized.     

An Artificial Neural Network based approach for estimation of rain intensity from spectral moments of a Doppler Weather Radar

By using a Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at Shriharikota (13.66°N & 80.23°E), an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based technique is proposed to improve the accuracy of rain intensity estimation. Three spectral moments of a Doppler spectra are utilized as an input data to an ANN. Rain intensity, as measured by the tipping bucket rain gauges around the DWR station, are considered as a target values for the given inputs. Rain intensity as estimated by the developed ANN model is validated by the rain gauges measurements. With the help of a developed technique, reasonable improvement in the estimation of rain intensity is observed. By using the developed technique, root mean square error and bias are reduced in the range of 34–18% and 17–3% respectively, compared to Z–R approach.     

Safety Analysis of Helicopter Autorotation Landing Execution on Conditions of Providing Skid Landing Gear Static Strength

The requirements for skid landing gear static strength ensuring are examined based on the comparative analysis of the Airworthiness Standards requirements. Probabilistic principle of determining the safety factor of the skid landing gear is presented. The analysis of the experimental data on bench and flight tests is performed for calculating the actual value of this factor.     

Nonlinear deforming of laminated composite shells of revolution under finite deflections and normal’s rotation angles

The discretization of the boundary value problem for laminated composite shells is based on the finite difference approach using the regular mesh with the constant grid step and the difference operators of the second order of accuracy. The dynamic relaxation method is proposed for the solution of the nonlinear problem. The evolutionary equations of the dynamic relaxation are constructed, and the optimum parameters of the converging linear iterative process are estimated.     

Genetic differentiation induced by spaceflight treatment of Cistanche deserticola and identification of inter-simple sequence repeat markers associated with its medicinal constituent contents

The dried, fleshy stems of Cistanche deserticola (Orobanchaceae) are popular tonics in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to treat the inability of kidney in expelling extra fluid in the body, causing fluid retention, and reform reproductive system. However, the wild plants of C. deserticola have become endangered due to habitat downsizing and over-harvesting for its medicinal usages. The present research was carried out for the following purposes: (1) promoting the space-breeding research; (2) providing molecular evidence for agricultural selective breeding; and (3) protecting this endangered herbal medicine and conserving its genetic resources.     

Laminar flow control research at TsAGI: Past and present

This paper presents a brief review of activities in laminar flow control being performed at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after Prof. N.E. Zhukovsky (TsAGI). These efforts are focused on the improvement of the existing laminar flow control methods and on the development of new ones. The investigations have demonstrated the effectiveness of aircraft surface laminarization applications with the aim of friction drag reduction. The opportunity of considerable delaying of laminar-turbulent transition due to special wing profile geometry and using boundary layer suction and surface cooling has been verified at sub- and supersonic speeds through various wind tunnel testing at TsAGI and during flying laboratory experiments at the Flight Research Institute (LII). The investigations on using hybrid laminar flow control systems for friction drag reduction were also carried out. New techniques of laminar flow control were proposed, in particular, the method of local heating of the wing leading edge, boundary layer laminarization by means of receptivity control, and electrohydrodynamic methods of boundary layer stability control.     

Analytical construction of interception trajectories in atmosphere

For an interception strategy of a removable target by a return space vehicle (RSV), we propose a structure of the control law by the aerodynamic efficiency that determines a chain of the three standard trajectories: nosing-up–free flight–nosing-down. A solution of the terminal problem is to determine numerical values of the control parameters that define moments to switch the RSV flight from one standard trajectory to another.     

A software package for computer-aided design analysis of thin-walled structures from composite materials

An algorithm of analyzing the design parameters for a thin-walled wing from composite material based on the efficient distribution of structural material between load-carrying elements is described. We consider the problems of convergence acceleration for the iteration design analysis. Also presented are the examples of determining the design parameters for a superlight aircraft wing and the rational parameters of the filler in the form of a three-dimensional rod structure.     

Water feed influence on nitric oxide emission under oxidation of near-stoichiometric air-methane mixtures

We considered the influence of temperature on the nitric oxide emission under combustion of the near-stoichiometric mixtures with and without water feed. We revealed the advantage of the method of fuel-water-air mixture combustion over that of the leaned mixture combustion.