Research on Analysis and Predictive Modeling of the Frontal Flow Field During Parachutist High-Speed Descent

In high-speed parachuting, complex turbulent phenomena (i.e., deadly vortices) may cause problems such as parachute inflation delay or even deployment failure. To address these issues, this study develops a high-precision numerical simulation dummy model in which adaptive mesh generation techniques, combined with Euler–Lagrange bidirectional coupling based on a large eddy simulation, are employed to model the multiphase flow field during parachute descent. The key parameters are adjusted, and the numerical model is refined based on wind tunnel experiments and User-Defined Functions. The bidirectional validation of the experimental and simulated data reveals the mechanism of turbulent flow formation and its evolutionary patterns around the parachutist–parachute system for different lateral and descent velocities during the high-speed descent phase. A prediction model based on a multi-information fusion neural network algorithm is further established to address the challenge in special parachuting scenarios whereby vortices in the flow field around the parachutist prevent the parachute from opening. The model integrates the Haar wavelet to extract global low-frequency features that characterize the overall structure and trends, an energy valley optimization algorithm, a convolutional neural network, a bidirectional long short-term memory network, and a self-attention mechanism to achieve one-second-ahead turbulence prediction. With nine physical quantities as inputs and descent velocity as the output indicator, the model has a Root Mean Square Error of 0.085, a Mean Absolute Error of 0.051, and a Mean Absolute Percentage Error of 0.0021.

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Publication Details

Journal
Aerospace
Published
2026-02-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace13030211
Primary Topic
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Research on Analysis and Predictive Modeling of the Frontal Flow Field During Parachutist High-Speed Descent

Xuesong Xiang, Zhaojun Xi, Jie Yang, Yichao Li et al.
Aerospace
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
article

Research on Analysis and Predictive Modeling of the Frontal Flow Field During Parachutist High-Speed Descent

Xuesong Xiang, Zhaojun Xi, Jie Yang, Yichao Li, Zimo Chen, Siyi Ma, Renfu Li, Zhongda Wu
article en

Abstract

In high-speed parachuting, complex turbulent phenomena (i.e., deadly vortices) may cause problems such as parachute inflation delay or even deployment failure. To address these issues, this study develops a high-precision numerical simulation dummy model in which adaptive mesh generation techniques, combined with Euler–Lagrange bidirectional coupling based on a large eddy simulation, are employed to model the multiphase flow field during parachute descent. The key parameters are adjusted, and the numerical model is refined based on wind tunnel experiments and User-Defined Functions. The bidirectional validation of the experimental and simulated data reveals the mechanism of turbulent flow formation and its evolutionary patterns around the parachutist–parachute system for different lateral and descent velocities during the high-speed descent phase. A prediction model based on a multi-information fusion neural network algorithm is further established to address the challenge in special parachuting scenarios whereby vortices in the flow field around the parachutist prevent the parachute from opening. The model integrates the Haar wavelet to extract global low-frequency features that characterize the overall structure and trends, an energy valley optimization algorithm, a convolutional neural network, a bidirectional long short-term memory network, and a self-attention mechanism to achieve one-second-ahead turbulence prediction. With nine physical quantities as inputs and descent velocity as the output indicator, the model has a Root Mean Square Error of 0.085, a Mean Absolute Error of 0.051, and a Mean Absolute Percentage Error of 0.0021.

AerospaceVol. 13(3)
Imperial College London (GB), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 44%
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
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