Helicopters

Future helicopters will require all-weather capability for stabilized flight through severe atmospheric turbulence. This requirement has brought into focus the effect of turbulence on handling qualities. Accordingly, there is renewed interest in modeling and simulating turbulence and predicting turbulence-induced rotor oscillations. This thesis addresses three fundamental aspects of the problem: (1) modeling and simulation of turbulence including cross-correlation; (2) three-dimensional dynamic-wake effects on rotor response to turbulence and (3) prediction of turbulence and response statistics. The analysis is based on the theory of isotropic and homogeneous turbulence and Taylor's frozen-field approximation. Quasisteady airfoil aerodynamics and a three-dimensional wake are used. Both the isolated blades and isolated rotors are treated. The parallelization is carried out on a massively parallel MasPar SIMD computer. Major conclusions include: (i) The effects of cross-correlation are negligible when two stations lie on the same blade and appreciable when two stations lie on different blades. (ii) In modeling the three-dimensional wake, 3 harmonics are required and dynamic wake has dominant influence on response statistics. (iii) With increasing comprehensiveness of helicopter-turbulence modeling, the sequential execution times increase dramatically; by comparison, the parallel execution times are far lower and, more significantly, remain nearly constant.

A numerical model for the simulation of three-dimensional normal blade-vortex interaction has been developed to study the bending and variation of core radius of the vortex due to the influence of the blade and the subsequent unsteady force on the blade. For thin blades, a procedure to enable instantaneous cutting of the vortex has been employed to study the vortex response to cutting. The vortex is represented by a filament model which includes axial flow within the core and non-uniform core area. The vortex is convected with self-induced velocities given by the Biot-Savart line integral, and the effect of the cylinder is obtained using a vortex sheet panel method. The governing equations for the vortex axial velocity have a form similar to that of the one-dimensional gas dynamics equations and admit "shock-like" discontinuities. The results indicate that the amount of vortex bending due to interaction with the blade is primarily dependent on the ratio of blade thickness T to ambient vortex core radius sigma o, although for a given amount of bending of the vortex axis, increase in cylinder forward speed results in a decrease in vortex core radius. For blades with T/sigma o < 0(1), very little bending is observed for attack angles under the stall limit. In the case of vortex cutting by a blade, vortex shocks and expansion waves are observed to propagate on the vortex axis away from the blade.

Flight tests of an open loop higher harmonic vibration control system
were conducted on an S-76A helicopter during the early part of 1985.
This paper discusses the design, conduct and results of those tests.
The flight tests included evaluations of Higher Harmonic Control (HHC)
inputs in the longitudinal, lateral and collective axes at varying
amplitudes and phases. These flight tests have demonstrated the feasibility
of HHC on a medium size, high speed helicopter. Significant vibration
reductions throughout the aircraft were demonstrated at forward
speeds up to 150 knots. The capability of HHC to reduce vibrations was
also demonstrated at varying rotor speeds and during maneuvers. Structural
data obtained during testing, showed a general increase in control
system loads during HHC operation. However, no loads were above structural
limits and it appears that a control system could be designed with
sufficient strength to accept all HHC loads.

This dissertation investigates the effects of dynamic stall and three-dimensional wake on isolated-rotor trim, stability and loads. Trim analysis of predicting the pilot's control inputs and the corresponding periodic responses is based on periodic shooting with the fast Floquet theory and damped Newton iteration. Stability analysis, also based on the fast Floquet theory, predicts damping levels and frequencies. Loads analysis uses a force-integration approach to predict the rotating-blade root shears and moments as well as the hub forces and moments. The blades have flap bending, lag bending and torsion degrees of freedom. Dynamic stall is represented by the ONERA stall models of lift, drag and pitching moment, and the unsteady, nonuniform downwash is represented by a three-dimensional, finite-state wake model. Throughout, full blade-stall-wake dynamics is used in that all states are included from trim to stability to loads predictions. Moreover, these predictions are based on four aerodynamic theories--quasisteady linear theory, quasisteady stall theory, dynamic stall theory and dynamic stall and wake theory--and cover a broad range of system parameters such as thrust level, advance ratio, number of blades and blade torsional frequency. The investigation is conducted in three phases. In phase one, the elastic flap-lag-torsion equations are coupled with a finite-state wake model and with linear quasisteady airfoil aerodynamics. The investigation presents convergence characteristics of trim and stability with respect to the number of spatial azimuthal harmonics and radial shape functions in the wake representation. It includes a comprehensive parametric study over a broad range of system parameters. The investigation also includes correlation with the measured lag-damping data of a three-bladed isolated rotor operated untrimmed. In the correlation, three structural models of the root-flexure-blade assembly are used to demonstrate the strengths and the weaknesses of lag-damping predictions. Phase two includes dynamic stall in addition to three-dimensional wake to generate trim and stability results over a comprehensive range of system parameters. It addresses the degree of sophistication necessary in blade discretization and wake representation under dynamically stalled conditions. The convergence and parametric studies isolate the effects of wake, quasisteady stall and dynamic stall on trim and stability. Finally, phase three predicts the rotating blade loads and nonrotating hub loads; the predictions are based on the blade, wake and stall models used in the preceding trim and stability investigations. Although an accurate evaluation of loads requires a more refined blade description, the results isolate and demonstrate the principal dynamic stall and wake effects on the loads.

The dissertation investigates helicopter trim and stability during level bank-angle and diving bank-angle turns. The level turn is moderate in that sufficient power is available to maintain level maneuver, and the diving turn is severe where the power deficit is overcome by the kinetic energy of descent. The investigation basically represents design conditions where the peak loading goes well beyond the steady thrust limit and the rotor experiences appreciable stall. The major objectives are: 1) to assess the sensitivity of the trim and stability predictions to the approximations in modeling stall, 2) to correlate the trim predictions with the UH-60A flight test data, and 3) to demonstrate the feasibility of routinely using the exact fast-Floquet periodic eigenvector method for mode identification in the stability analysis. The UH-60A modeling and analysis are performed using the comprehensive code RCAS (Army's Rotorcraft Comprehensive Analysis System). The trim and damping predictions are based on quasisteady stall, ONERA-Edlin vi (Equations Differentielles Lineaires) and Leishman-Beddoes dynamic stall models. From the correlation with the test data, the strengths and weaknesses of the trim predictions are presented.