Predicting the Influence of Blade Tip Shape on Hovering Rotor Performance with Comprehensive Analyses

摘要

The ability to predict and understand the influence of rotor tip shape on hovering rotor performance from first-principles is critical to rotorcraft development. Comprehensive rotorcraft analysis methods can be used to reduce the risk and cost associated with developing new rotor designs by being able to rapidly and cost-effectively predict performance. Moreover, these methods are ideal for traversing the design space in order to identify promising, or interesting, designs for more detailed analysis, testing and optimization. In this paper the ability of three distinctly different comprehensive rotorcraft methods - EHPIC, CHARM and VTM - to predict the hover performance of a rotor with a variety of tip shapes is evaluated. The assessment indicates that good predictive fidelity is achieved for many of the cases considered, though dependence on airfoil data remains a limiting factor in the generality of the analysis results.