ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4

The aerodynamic environment of a helicopter blade in forward flight. (Dr E Gillies, Lecture 1)
The `Sausage plot'
The aerodynamics of a rotor in forward flight are complicated. A useful nondimensional speed which can be used to describe the aerodynamic phenomena occurring in forward flight is the advance ratio U (A1.1) R which is the ratio of flight speed U to tip speed R. The maximum speed of most 0.4 . For the Lynx helicopter, the tip helicopters tends to be in the region of 0.4 translates to a forward speed of 84m/s speed is approximately 210m/s, so or 163kts. The advance ratio has components in the x direction (tangential to the rotor disc) and in the z direction (down through the disc). cos (A1.2) x sin z where is the forward tilt of the rotor disc.

ROTOR AEROFOIL

UP

VELOCITY FROM DISC TILT, INFLOW AND FLAPPING

VELOCITY FROM ROTATION & FORWARD SPEED

The tangential velocity at the rotor blade varies along the blade span and around the rotor azimuth ( 0 o at the rear of the disc, and most helicopters have an anti-clockwise rotor rotation when viewed from above). If r denotes the nondimensional spanwise position on the blade, then this tangential velocity is

The velocity of the airflow down through the rotor disc is U P , and this depends on the flapping velocity, the disc tilt and the inflow to the rotor. The following figure shows the tangential velocities over a rotor in forward flight at an advance ratio of 0.2.

 

UT

R r

sin

 

(A1.3)

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4
Local blade velocity contours U

reverse flow

Velocities are greater on the advancing side than the retreating side. As a result, if the if the blades do not flap & pitch as they rotate around the azimuth then more lift is generated on the advancing side of the rotor than the retreating side. The rotor is then unstable in forward flight and the helicopter rolls to the left. The local lift contours for an untrimmed rotor at an advance ratio of 0.2 are shown below.
Local blade lift contours untrimmed rotor U

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4

To trim the rotor the blades flap & their pitch angle is changed via the swashplate, pitch links and feather hinge.

This cyclic pitch is of the form

0

PITCH = COLLECTIVE + LATERAL CYCLIC + LONGITUDINAL CYCLIC At the moment, consider a rotor which is trimmed approximately, with forwards disc tilt caused by longitudinal cyclic pitch. Here we have
0

The rolling moment coefficient of a rotor in forward flight is derived from bladeelement-theory (see Newman ) as

Lift curve slope a is empirically given a value of 5.7/radian for rotor blades. For zero rolling moment if forward flight (A1.6) gives a first estimate of the cyclic pitch angles needed to trim the rotor. Maximum blade pitch in (A1.5) occurs at 270 degrees 0.4 ) the maximum pitch can be set azimuth. For high forward speed (say close to the blade section stall angle to exploit the maximum performance of the blade section. If a typical static stall angle for a blade is 14 degrees, then
14

B1

(A1.7)
o

7.72 and a Substituting (A1.7) into (A1.6) results in a collective angle 0 o longitudinal cyclic pitch of B1 6.48 . Putting these approximate values into a rotor in forward flight balances the natural tendency of the rotor to roll and results in the lift contours shown below.

A @

7 9" !

% 65

CMR

a 2 2 3

B1

B1 sin

(A1.5)

3 2

&
2

% &

' ( 0)'

3 4"

! " $#!

A1 cos

B1 sin

(A1.4) or

(A1.6)

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4

Local blade lift contours roll trimmed rotor U

In actual flight the rotor blades flap up and down in addition to the cyclic pitch. A typical longitudinal trim calculation process for a Lynx helicopter is described next. For a given all up weight (AUW) and fuselage drag at a given airspeed the resultant main rotor thrust vector is fixed in space. This allows calculation of the disc tilt and fuselage tilt angles for moment equilibrium in forward flight. The fuselage drag is available from wind tunnel tests at a reference test speed (usually 100ft/s or 30.48m/s). For the Lynx this is D 100 1112.06N . This is scaled to the correct speed by the relation
DF D 100
2 U 100

An iteration is performed between the rotor thrust and inflow values to give C T and zD z i . The flapping angles (disc tilt), inflow and rotor thrust are input to
2

0 0

8
x

0 0

a1 a

V `

1 3

CT

P R Q YXI

H I

A1 B1 a0

b1

R WI Q

H I

P H

P H I R Q SI

1112.06U 30.48 2

(A1.8)

P H I P I H I

H I

F GE C D C P H H

zD 2

a1

(A1.9)
2

b1

zD

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4

and this may be used to calculate the collective and cyclic angles, together with the rotor coning angle required for longitudinal trim. A lateral trim analysis is also necessary due to the amount of cyclic pitch necessary to trim out the effects of tail rotor thrust. In the above, (=7.10 for the Lynx blades) is the Lock number, which 2 (=1.193 for the Lynx hub) is is a ratio of aerodynamic to flapping inertia; and the non-dimensional flapping frequency, which is dependent on the rotor hub stiffness and design. A sample longitudinal trim calculation for the Lynx helicopter in the 0.35 is shown below: speed range 0

30

25

20

Angle (degrees)

15

10

LAT. CYCLIC

10

10

20

30

40

Forward speed (m/s)

With forward speed the fuselage rotates forwards and longitudinal cyclic pitch increases to overcome increasing drag. Of note is the fact that the collective pitch decreases from its hover value to a minimum at around 30m/s- this is evidence that a rotor in forward flight benefits from `translational lift', which is greater than the lift generated in the hover. Eventually however, the increased downflow through the rotor caused by the forwards disc tilt causes the collective to rise at higher speeds. The following anecdote describes the phenomenon of translational lift:
... " I slowly raised the collective to pull the Huey into a hover. No go. I pulled in full power but the Huey just sat there shuddering. [In] an overloaded condition like this [a helicopter] can be made light on the skids with [full] collective and then urged forwards with the cyclic so that it slides across the ground on its skids. If it can slide along [fast] enough, it will take off like an airplane, even though it can't hover " R Mason, 1 st (Air) Cavalry Vietnam 1965, writing in `Chickenhawk'

c db

e f hge

COLLECTIVE PITCH LONG. CYCLIC

FUSELAGE TILT

50

60

70

80

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4

The longitudinal trim equations are strongly coupled to the lateral trim equations. In lateral trim the procedure is essentially the same, but the tail rotor thrust is also important. These changes in flapping, collective and cyclic angles mean that the rotor blades themselves experience rapid changes in angle of attack as they rotate about the azimuth. To determine the aerodynamic environment experienced by a rotor blade in forward flight, a `sausage plot' is used (sometimes called a `figure of eight' diagram). This is a plot of blade incidence versus Mach number.

From before the tangential velocity at the rotor is and, taking into account the flapping of the blades into the expression for the perpendicular airflow we have
. i

The inflow angle of air to the blade is

tan

UP UT

(A1.12) .

Plotting out the locus of M , results in a `sausage plot'. A typical high speed plot for the Lynx helicopter is shown below:

Mt r

sin

d qvgq

And the blade angle of attack is therefore calculated as The blade Mach number is

UP

cos

Xy

UT

R r

w vt u r qi i p
0

Blade pitch is Flap angle is

a0

w x r s

A1 cos a1 cos

B1 sin b1 sin

(A1.10)

sin

(A1.11)

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS 4
16

14

= 0.3 r = 0.9

12

Incidence (degrees)

10

0 0.4

0.45

0.5

0.55

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

Mach number

Note that the blade experiences a very severe aerodynamic environment in forward flight. The advancing blade Mach number towards the tip is very high and in the transonic regime. The retreating blade incidence is close to, or above, the static aerofoil section stall angle. This environment leads to conflicting requirements for aerofoil design. 1) The very high Mach numbers on the advancing side require very thin uncambered sections to prevent drag divergence from shockwaves forming on the blades. 2) The high lift required on the retreating side necessitates high blade angles of attack. The appropriate aerofoil shape for this task is a thick cambered section. This is a very significant conflicting design requirement. Other parts of helicopter design also reveal conflicting requirements (e.g. twist is desireable for good hover performance, but undesireable in forward flight). Moreover, blade flexibilty is a serious design issue. Blades are relatively flexible in torsion and the aerofoil section must therefore be designed to have a very low pitching moment. The challenge is to design a blade which has good performance in both of these high Mach and high incidence regimes. These design requirements, and aerofoils which meet them, are discussed in the next two lectures.