Numerical simulation of aerial liquid drops of Canadair CL-415 and Dash-8 airtankers

Corentin Calbrix; Alexei Stoukov; Axelle Cadiere; Benoit Roig; Dominique Legendre

doi:10.1071/WF22147

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Numerical simulation of aerial liquid drops of Canadair CL-415 and Dash-8 airtankers

Corentin Calbrix ^A ^B , Alexei Stoukov ^A , Axelle Cadiere ^B , Benoit Roig ^B and Dominique Legendre ^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT) – Université de Toulouse, CNRS-INPT-UPS, 31400 Toulouse, France.

^B UPR Chrome University of Nimes, Rue du Dr G. Salan, CEDEX 1, Nimes 30021, France.

^* Correspondence to: legendre@imft.fr

International Journal of Wildland Fire 32(11) 1515-1528 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22147

Submitted: 6 July 2022 Accepted: 8 September 2023 Published: 6 October 2023

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

Airtankers are able to drop volumes of liquid (suppressant or fire retardant) varying from less than 1 m³ to several tens of cubic metres directly on a fire or with the objective to form barriers of retardant to stop or reduce fire propagation.

Aims

The objective of this work is to demonstrate that Computational Fluid Dynamics can be used to provide a deep understanding of liquid fragmentation and dispersion when liquid is dropped from an aircraft.

Methods

A numerical investigation based on the Volume of Fluid method is used for the analysis of airtanker performance and applied here to the biggest airtankers used in Europe: the Canadair CL-415 and Dash-8.

Key results

Numerical simulations are used to provide an accurate description of tank discharge as well as to study liquid ejection, fragmentation and atomisation in air. From the results, the vertical penetration and lateral expansion of the liquid are described using simple modelling.

Conclusions

From the numerical simulation, the main characteristics of liquid atomisation and dispersion in air are described and modelled.

Implications

Computational Fluid Dynamics is an efficient tool that may help to optimise airtanker performance.

Keywords: aerial drop, airtanker, Canadair CL-415, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Dash-8, drop pattern, fluid mechanic, liquid atomisation and dispersion, tank discharge.

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