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Modelling the interaction of helicopter main rotor and tail rotor wakes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2016

T. M. Fletcher  and
R. E. Brown
T. M. Fletcher
Affiliation:
Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College, London, UK
R. E. Brown
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
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Abstract

The mutual interaction between the main rotor and tail rotor wakes is central to some of the most problematic dynamic phenomena experienced by helicopters. Yet achieving the ability to model the growth and propagation of helicopter rotor wakes with sufficient realism to capture the details of this interaction has been a significant challenge to rotorcraft aerodynamicists for many decades. A novel computational fluid dynamics code tailored specifically for rotorcraft applications, the vorticity transport model, has been used to simulate the interaction of the rotors of a helicopter with a single main rotor and tail rotor in both hover and low-speed quartering flight, and with the tail rotor rotating both top-forward and top-aft. The simulations indicate a significant level of unsteadiness in the performance of both main and tail rotors, especially in quartering flight, and a sensitivity to the direction of rotation of the tail rotor. Although the model thus captures behaviour that is similar to that observed in practice, the challenge still remains to integrate the information from high fidelity simulations such as these into routine calculations of the flight dynamics of helicopters.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 111 , Issue 1124 , October 2007 , pp. 637 - 643
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 2007 

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