Advanced Methods for Testing Rotor Performance

摘要

A principal advantage of rotorcraft is their ability to hover, and the efficiency with which they can hover is fundamental to helicopter productivity. It is surprising, therefore, that the ability to predict hover efficiency (and thus design optimum rotors) is limited. This is because the rotor flow field is so sensitive to the rotor wake that there are large analytical errors. This same wake sensitivity also causes large experimental errors. (If a perfect prediction capability existed, there would be no way to know it, because of experimental error.) Therefore, the attainment of greater rotor analysis capability is a twofold problem of improving both computational and experimental accuracy. This effort is directed at the experimental part of the problem.