Research overview of rain effect on aircraft aerodynamic performance

The natural characteristics of rain were studied. The complicated physical phenomena on wing surfaces in rain conditions were analyzed. Emphases were laid on the research progress of experimental tests and numerical simulation of rain effect on aircraft aerodynamic performance at home and abroad. The contents included aerodynamic loss of heavy rain on aircraft wing, the mechanisms of influence of rainfall on aircraft aerodynamic performance and wing sensibility to various influential factors. Some open questions and significant technical challenges in the current research progress at home and abroad involve: natural flight test, scaling laws, the behavior of boundary-layer forced transition in wind tunnel tests and modeling of multi-phases flow in numerical study.