The analysis of rotors in hover has always been a significant challenge. The presence of strong vortices underneath the rotor requires a large amount of grid points to properly capture the vorticity, and many time steps are required to reach a time-independent state. To bring the simulation cost to a more practical state for industry, a modified hybrid Navier–Stokes/free-wake method has been introduced, which successfully reduced grid count and simulation time by one order of magnitude compared to full Navier–Stokes simulations. In this hybrid method, Navier–Stokes and free-wake solvers are loosely coupled for fast convergence in hover. The S-76 model-scale blades with three tip designs were studied to assess current approaches. The proposed approaches showed reasonable-to-good correlation with measured figure of merit, thrust, and torque data. The effects of tip-design and tip-speed variations were captured well. The physical mechanisms of tip-design impact on hover performance were also studied.
Modified Hybrid Navier–Stokes/Free-Wake Method for Hovering Rotor Analysis
Journal of Aircraft ; 55 , 1 ; 38-51
2017-02-10
14 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Modified Hybrid Navier–Stokes/Free-Wake Method for Hovering Rotor Analysis
Online Contents | 2017
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 2015
|Navier-Stokes calculations of hovering rotor flowfields
NTRS | 1988
|Navier-Stokes calculations of hovering rotor flowfields
AIAA | 1988
|