Response of a nonrotating rotor blade to lateral turbulence Part II: Experiment

Abstract

In Part I of this work, a theoretical simulation study of rotor blade response to turbulence in forward flight is presented. For verification of this theoretical computational method, a new experimental method based on a special gust field generated by a rotating slotted cylinder with an airfoil (RSC/airfoil) in a wind tunnel is developed to simulate the aerodynamic environment of a rotating rotor blade in forward flight. This gust generator can produce a single harmonic gust wave and also turbulence with uniform power spectral density over a certain frequency band in the lateral and longitudinal directions. In this article, quantitative comparisons are also made with theoretical results for both random and nonrandom parametric excitation. The quantitative agreement between theory and experiment indicates that this experimental method is useful.