LAUSR

Abstract The initial spray caused by a rolling aircraft elastic pneumatic tire is studied by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. The tire spray is divided into four types: bow wave, rooster tail, impact-generated side plume and wave-generated side plume. The distributions of the particles involved in the different types of spray in the initial unperturbed water film are studied, with the relationship between the momentum transfer, the relative position of water particles and the aircraft tire being proposed. The impact-generated side plume is caused by the direct impact of tire, while the wave-generated side plume is caused by the breakup of the wave developed by the tire. The particles involved in the wave-generated side plume all come from a parabolic region inside the strip of initial injected particles at a given time. The width of the parabolic region reduces with the increasing water depth. The strips and the kinematic characteristics of particles at any time are both similar. A model is developed to predict the direction and magnitude of the momentum transfer velocity in water film based on the similarity of the strips and the kinematic characteristics of the particles, which works well for the cases with small tire load and thick water film.