Abstract
The present work is part of the Clean Sky 2 project Full-Fairing Rotor Head Aerodynamic Design Optimization (FURADO), which deals with the aerodynamic design optimization of a full-fairing rotor head for the Rapid And Cost-Effective Rotorcraft (RACER) compound helicopter. The rotor head is a major drag source and previous investigations have revealed that the application of rotor head fairings can be an effective drag reduction measure. As part of the full-fairing concept, a new blade-sleeve fairing was aerodynamically optimized for cruise flight. Within this publication, the newly developed blade-sleeve fairing is put to test on an isolated, five-bladed rotor head and compared to an already existing reference blade-sleeve fairing, which was developed at Airbus Helicopters. Numerical flow simulations are performed with ANSYS Fluent 2019 R2 considering a rotating rotor head with cyclic pitch movement. The aerodynamic forces of the isolated rotor head are analyzed to determine the performance benefit of the newly developed blade-sleeve fairing. A drag reduction of 4.7% and a lift increase of 20% are obtained in comparison to the Airbus Helicopters reference configuration. Furthermore, selected surface and flow field quantities are presented to give an overview on the occurring flow phenomena.
Highlights
Nowadays, the aviation industry enables a seamless door-to-door mobility by multiple transportation means and the number of transported passengers has significantly increased within the last decade [1]
The obtained lift and drag are compared to a reference bladesleeve fairing (BSF), which was developed at Airbus Helicopters during the preliminary design phase of the new compound helicopter
The new BSF was optimized for the Rapid And Cost-Effective Rotorcraft (RACER) cruise flight and a performance benefit is expected compared to the baseline fairing
Summary
The aviation industry enables a seamless door-to-door mobility by multiple transportation means and the number of transported passengers has significantly increased within the last decade [1]. In the Aerodynamic Design Optimization of a Helicopter Fuselage including a Rotating Rotor Head (ADHeRo) project [10,11], experimental and numerical investigations were performed for a Twin Engine Light (TEL) class utility helicopter providing detailed flow characteristics and drag analysis. Aerospace 2021, 8, 66 configurations in the wind tunnel of the Ames Research Center Their main objectives were to determine interference effects between the rotor head fairings and to identify further drag reduction potential by the application of well designed fairing shapes. The project is aimed on the aerodynamic design optimization and flow analysis of a semi-watertight full-fairing rotor head with respect to drag reduction of the RACER compound helicopter [21,22,23]. In order to be able to determine the benefit of the newly developed fairing, it is compared to a reference geometry, which was developed by Airbus Helicopters during the preliminary design phase of the RACER demonstrator
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