Effect of active camber morphing on rotor performance and control loads

Abstract

A computational investigation of a helicopter main rotor with an active-camber morphing mechanism was conducted to identify the capability to simultaneously save rotor power and reduce pitch-link loads using as low as possible camber deflection magnitudes. Comprehensive rotor aeromechanics analysis with elastic blade modeling and a free vortex wake for the aerodynamics model was used to ensure computational efficiency. The investigation was based on a full-scale Bo 105 helicopter main rotor in level flight condition at μ=0.3 and CT/σ=0.089. In addition to a variation of the radial position and length of the active-camber section, the capabilities and system behavior were investigated in an extensive parametric study using practical actuation inputs. The same computational framework was used to obtain optimal control inputs that led to best performance in terms of power savings using two-per-rev (2P) individual blade control (IBC) via pitch-link inputs and 2P active-twist control. The relative potential of the three active mechanisms and the aerodynamic phenomenology was compared. All of the investigated active-rotor mechanisms contributed to rotor power savings via a more uniform distribution of thrust over the rotor disk. Both IBC and active twist yielded maximum performance improvement of about 1.8% over the baseline in terms of power reduction. With active camber, simultaneous rotor power reduction of 3.8% and a peak-to-peak pitch-link load reduction of 20% were obtained using a nonharmonic camber deflection deployment schedule with a half-peak-to-peak magnitude of 2∘. The global maximum of power savings observed with active camber was 4.4%, which resulted in an increase of peak-to-peak pitch-link loads by 35% and a required half-peak-to-peak camber deflection magnitude of 3.6∘.