A study was conducted to identify the optimum blade tip planform for a model-scale active twist rotor. The analysis identified blade tip design traits which simultaneously reduce rotor power of an unactuated rotor while leveraging aeromechanical couplings to tailor the active response of the blade. Optimizing the blade tip planform for minimum rotor power in forward flight provided a 5 percent improvement in performance compared to a rectangular blade tip, but reduced the vibration control authority of active twist actuation by 75 percent. Optimizing for maximum blade twist response increased the vibration control authority by 50 percent compared to the rectangular blade tip, with little effect on performance. Combined response and power optimization resulted in a blade tip design which provided similar vibration control authority to the rectangular blade tip, but with a 3.4 percent improvement in rotor performance in forward flight.
Optimization of an Active Twist Rotor Blade Planform for Improved Active Response and Forward Flight Performance
Decennial AHS Aeromechanics Specialists'' Conference ; 2014 ; San Francisco, CA, United States
2014-01-22
Conference paper
No indication
English
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2015
|Systematic Analysis of Rotor Blade Effective Twist Due to Planform Variation
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2015
|