Modelling research on the drop pattern of the aerial firefighting system

Abstract The drop pattern of firefighting aircraft directly affects their firefighting effectiveness, which is crucial for assessing their operational performance. When a firefighting aircraft sprays retardant from a high altitude, the physical form of the retardant undergoes a complex transformation process due to the coupled effects of the wind field and fire field, making it difficult to predict and control the coverage distribution. An aerial dropping simulation model has been developed and validated using literature data to investigate the spraying performance of firefighting aircraft. This model, which reflects the complex spraying process, is constructed by combining fragmentation mechanisms and decoupling relevant physical processes through a discretization approach. An iterative solution algorithm for the high-order nonlinear system of equations has also been developed, enabling rapid model computation and significantly reducing computational time. The accuracy of the simulation is verified against literature data, and the results demonstrate that the calculated values align well with the literature values.