APPLICATION OF COMPUTATIONAL AEROELASTICITY TO DESIGN OF HELICOPTER ROTOR BLADES

摘要

Design of efficient and stable rotors must accountrnfor the reciprocal influence of aerodynamic andrnstructural forces. It is a challenging task, whichrnrelies on experience and on a few, validated tools,rnbased on low fidelity models of structure andrnaerodynamics. Adopting high-fidelity modelingrnwould provide a more accurate load predictionrnand more direct correlation between design parametersrnand rotor performances.rnNumerical investigation of rotor flowfieldrnbased on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)rnhave been performed with increasing success inrnthe latest ten years. The aerodynamic solver isrnnormally a research code customised for rotorrnflow. However, rotor blades are normally modeledrnas beam elements. The potential for improvementrnmight be represented by a more accurate,rnunsteady modeling of turbulence and byrnhigh-fidelity mdoeling of the structure.rnIn the latest few years - outside of the helicopterrnworld - many software packages have beenrnmade available, which can couple Aerodynamicsrnand Structure. They do not account for a helicopterrncontrol system and for helicopter trim inrngeneral. However, dynamic mesh, accurate modelingrnof turbulence and flexibility in boundaryrnconditions might make them suitable also for rotorrnflow - provided they can be coupled to an externalrn"trim" programme.rnThis paper presents the first incomplete resultsrnof a test, where the applicability of two powerfulrngeneral purpose simulation tools is assessedrnon rotors.