Investigation into the Aerodynamic Performance of the Tiltrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Proprotor

摘要

THE Smart UAV is a tilt-rotor type of convertiplane, which canntake off and land like a helicopter and convert to a propeller-ndriven fixed-wing aircraft through a tilting procedure. Therefore,nunlike the propeller of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft or the rotornof a helicopter, the proprotor of a tilt-rotor aircraft experiencesnsignificant changes in aerodynamic loading during its overall flightnmodes. The differences in aerodynamic performance due to tilt anglenand forward speed cause severe changes in thrust andmoments. Theynmay also induce significant vibration due to asymmetric flow on thenrotor disk. To evaluate the aerodynamic performance of the rotornunder such varying flight conditions, numerical simulations andnexperimental tests were conducted in this study.