Aircraft-skin Infrared Radiation Characteristics Modeling and Analysis

One of the most important problems of stealth technology is to evaluate the infrared radiation (IR) level received by IR sensors from fighters to be detected. This article presents a synthetic method for calculating the IR emitted from aircraft-skin. By reckoning the aerodynamic heating and hot engine casing to be the main heat sources of the exposed aircraft-skin, a numerical model of skin temperature distribution is established through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. Based on it, an infrared signature model for solving the complex geometry and structure of a fighter is proposed with the reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) method. Finally, by way of determining the IR intensity from aircraft-skin, the aircraft components that emit the most IR can be identified; and the cooling effects of the main aircraft components on IR intensity are investigated. It is found that reduction by 10 K in the skin temperature of head, vertical stabilizers and wings could lead to decline of more than 8% of the IR intensity on the aircraft-skin in front view while at the broadside of the aircraft, the drops in IR intensity could attain under 8%. The results provide useful reference in designing stealthy aircraft.