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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2015, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (4): 1034-1055.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2014.0253

• Aeroelasticity • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Aeroelasticity of helicopters

HAN Jinglong1, CHEN Quanlong2, YUN Haiwei1   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China;
    2. China Helicopter Research and Development Institute, Jingdezhen 333001, China
  • Received:2014-09-01 Revised:2014-09-10 Online:2015-04-15 Published:2014-10-31
  • Supported by:

    National Natural Science Foundation of China (11472133,11102085)

Abstract:

The aeroelastic problems of helicopter are different from those of fixed wing aircraft. Not only the single blade is considered and analyzed, but also the rotor is considered as an integrated aeroelastic system, for which the dynamic inflow, wake effects and interactions between rotor and fuselage are all considered in the analysis process. For a single blade, the eccentric field and geometrical nonlinearities, as well as nonlinear flap-lag-twist interactions caused by motion involvement should be considered in structural dynamics modeling; while dynamic inflow and wing tip stall effect should be considered in aerodynamic analysis. Therefore, those problems essentially belong to the category of nonlinear aeroelasticity. Furthermore, the airloads of rotor are transferred to fuselage via rotor shaft in a periodic way and cause vibrations and motions of fuselage; while the motions of fuselage change the root conditions of blades and affect rotor aeroelastic characteristics. Such rotor/fuselage interaction problem becomes one of the important research directions and hot spots in helicopter aeroelasticity in recent years. The numerical methods of rotor flow field simulation are becoming mature gradually, among which, the overset grid and sliding mesh techniques are used to simulate the rigid motion of blades, and the dynamic mesh technique is used to simulate the elastic deformation. Thus, the flow field simulation of elastic rotor can be implemented with enough accuracy and efficiency. These methods are showing thriving vitality and becoming another important research direction of helicopter aeroelasticity. New concepts and configurations, such as tiltrotor, advancing blade concept (ABC) and compound helicopter, bring new aeroelastic problems. Discovering and solving problems constantly to promote the discipline development are the lifelong objectives of aeroelastician forever.

Key words: helicopter, aeroelastic, rotor dynamics, rotor/fuselage interaction, vibration control

CLC Number: