Solid Mechanics and Vehicle Conceptual Design

Flight performance of helicopter rotors with Gurney flaps

  • ZHANG Yonggang ,
  • CUI Zhao ,
  • HAN Dong ,
  • LI Jianbo
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  • Science and Technology on Rotorcraft Aeromechanics Laboratory, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China

Received date: 2015-08-06

  Revised date: 2015-11-03

  Online published: 2015-11-26

Supported by

National Natural Science Foundation of China (11472129); Aeronautical Science Foundation of China (2013ZA52014); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NS2014007); A Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

To investigate the helicopter performance with the rotor deployed with Gurney flaps, a helicopter flight dynamics model is coupled with a Gurney flap model to analyze the fight performance. The flight test data of UH-60A helicopter is utilized to validate the modeling. The influence of the helicopter weight coefficient, Gurney flap height, deployment position and type on the rotor power is investigated. The distributions of the angle of attack over the rotor disk, rotor pitch controls and fuselage attitude angles are also analyzed. The results indicate that the Gurney flap can significantly reduce the required rotor power with larger takeoff gross weight at higher speed forward flight. The moveable Gurney flap can achieve better performance improvement than the fixed height Gurney flap. The power reduction increases with the height of Gurney flap and then decreases. The Gurney flap can introduce a larger power reduction when the position of Gurney flap is near the blade tip. The deployment of Gurney flap can distinctly decrease the maximum angle of attack in the retreating side with larger takeoff gross weight at higher speed forward flight. The collective, longitudinal and lateral cyclic pitches decrease with the deployment of Gurney flaps.

Cite this article

ZHANG Yonggang , CUI Zhao , HAN Dong , LI Jianbo . Flight performance of helicopter rotors with Gurney flaps[J]. ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA, 2016 , 37(7) : 2208 -2217 . DOI: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2015.0299

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