Sophisticated dynamic interface analysis methodology and computational tools contribute significantly to the leadership of Indal Technologies in the design and manufacture of naval helicopter handling systems. Aircraft on ships experience complex loading as the result of ship motion, wind, and inertial effects. This loading, combined with the highly nonlinear aircraft characteristics, causes the dynamic interface that exists between secured aircraft and ships to be highly complex. Indal Technologies is actively applying mathematical modeling and computer simulation to ensure the efficiency and safety of Indal Technologies' engineered products and solutions.

Dynaface®
To comprehensively investigate securing requirements and ensure superior performance of Indal Technologies' securing systems, which is continually developing and refining sophisticated mathematical models and corresponding computer simulations. Central to Indal Technologies' analysis capability is Dynaface® which solves the nonlinear dynamic equations governing the response of a secured helicopter to ship motion. The results lead to peak securing forces, operational envelopes, deck clearances, and fatigue spectra for secured aircraft.

Hover and Landing
Modeling and simulation capability also extends to the analysis of hovering aircraft. Indal Technologies' hover and landing simulation is a Monte Carlo simulation designed to predict pilot workload and helicopter landing dispersions under a variety of environmental conditions.

6DOFTOW
6DOFTOW simulates the response of towed systems to ship motions and is used to optimize the design of underwater towed body cabling, underwater towed systems and cable handling systems.

ShipSim
As the dominant excitation acting on embarked aircraft is ship motion, Indal Technologies has also developed simulation tools for accurately generating representative flight deck motions for the complete range of conditions in which helicopters must be secured. ShipSim evaluates time histories of flight deck motions as well as a number of additional parameters that are used to indicate the potential severity of securing conditions when the amplitudes of ship motions are small to moderate.

SPLAShMo®
In extreme seas, conventional ship response simulation methods fail due to the dominance of nonlinear effects. For this regime of ship operation, Indal Technologies has developed SPLAShMo® – the Simulation Program for Large Amplitude Ship Motion. SPLAShMo® considers the instantaneous ship position, orientation, velocity, and acceleration in the surrounding wave field to evaluate the instantaneous hydrodynamic hull pressures that are used to propagate the solution forward in time. The benefit of this approach is that all significant nonlinear effects can be preserved in the solution. Detailed ship motion simulation capability ensures accurate input data for subsequent aircraft response analysis.