Engineering Method of Prediction of Plume Path of Air Launched Missile

Separation dynamics study of an air-launched missile is a paramount task for ensuring the safety of launch aircraft. The study should certify that there is absolute absence of any physical interference of missile with the aircraft at any circumstance. It is also important to ensure that the interference of rocket motor plume of hot-launched missile does not have any significant effect on the structure, on board electronic components and sensitive parts of the aircraft. The plume ingestion into the aircraft intake is a critical problem which endangers the safety of the aircraft. Therefore, the prediction of plume path of hot-launched missile is a significant part of separation dynamics study. An engineering approach based on a particle tracking method was followed in predicting the plume path in the present work. Further, the method is modified using reverse particle tracking method to make it more efficient. The method is applied in predicting plume path for an air-to air-missile and is found that this approach gives reasonably accurate plume path with minimum computational requirements.