Flight performance analysis of hybrid airship considering added mass effects

In this paper, an analysis is applied to a hybrid airship considering the added mass. First, based on the dynamic mesh technology, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is employed to obtain the added mass coefficient matrix. Through a validation process using the 6:1 prolate spheroid, the 6 × 6 added mass matrix of hybrid airship is obtained. After a dynamic modeling, the equations of motion with added mass are developed. Through the linearization based on small perturbation, the linearized longitude model is used to simulate the dynamic response of a trim condition. The take-off and landing performance has been analyzed and affected by the added mass. The result shows an obvious vertical destabilizing trend on the hybrid airship dynamics due to the added mass and the inertial effect has little influence on the vehicle during the take-off and landing.