The preliminary design of the SHARCS rotor blade.

摘要

A topic of current rotorcraft research is the development of jet-smooth and quiet rotary flight. To achieve this goal, three rotor blade sub-systems have been developed to reduce the noise and vibrations associated with rotorcraft flight. Testing these systems requires the design and manufacture of a Mach scaled rotor blade with similar rotating natural frequencies as the full scale Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB) BO 105 rotor blade. The rotor blade and the sub-systems are to be tested in a 4 by 4 metre wind tunnel. This proof of concept wind tunnel rotor blade and the sub-systems are known as SHARCS (Smart Hybrid Active Rotor Control System). In this thesis, a preliminary design and analysis of the SHARCS rotor blade structure is explored.; The design of the rotor blade requires the use of principles of rotor blade aerodynamics, mechanics of composites, and structural analysis. Using these principles enables the loads imposed on the blade, its mass, flexural and torsional rigidities, stresses, and the safety factor for a given design to be calculated. The design of the composite lay-up is iterated until a safe structure with rotating natural frequencies within the required range is obtained. To this end, the commercial finite element software MSC.NASTRAN and ANSYS are employed. It is shown using the finite element analysis that the preliminary rotor blade design does indeed satisfy all the requirements that are imposed for this blade at the outset of the project.