Structural integrity design for an active helicopter rotor blade with piezoelectric flap actuators

Abstract

Helicopter uses a rotor system to generate lift, thrust and forces, and its aerodynamic environment is generally complex. Unsteady aerodynamic environment arises such as blade vortex interaction. This unsteady aerodynamic environment induces vibratory aerodynamic loads and high aeroacoustic noise. The aerodynamic load and aeroacoustic noise is at N times the rotor blade revolutions (N/rev). But conventional rotor control system composed of pitch links and swash plate is not capable of adjusting such vibratory loads because its control is restricted to 1/rev. Many active control methodologies have been examined to alleviate the problem. The blade using active control device manipulates the blade pitch angle with N/rev. In this paper, Active Trailing-edge Flap blade, which is one of the active control methods, is designed to reduce the unsteady aerodynamic loads. Active Trailing-edge Flap blade uses a trailing edge flap manipulated by an actuator to change camber line of the airfoil. Piezoelectric actuators are installed inside the blade to manipulate the trailing edge flap.