CFD calculations on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of a tilt-rotor in a conversion mode

In order to calculate the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of a tilt-rotor in a conver- sion mode, a virtual blade model （VBM） and an real blade model （RBM） are established respec- tively. A new multi-layer moving-embedded grid technique is proposed to reduce the numerical dissipation of the tilt-rotor wake in a conversion mode. In this method, a grid system generated abound the rotor accounts for rigid blade motions, and a new searching scheme named adaptive inverse map （AIM） is established to search corresponding donor elements in the present moving- embedded grid system to translate information among the different computational zones. A dual-time method is employed to fulfill unsteady calculations on the flowfield of the tilt-rotor, and a second-order centered difference scheme considering artificial viscosity is used to calculate the flux. In order to improve the computing efficiency, the single program multiple data （SPMD） model parallel acceleration technology is adopted, according to the characteristic of the current grid system. The lift and drag coefficients of an NACA0012 airfoil, the dynamic pressure distributions below a typical rotor plane, and the sectional pressure distributions on a three-bladed Branum- Tung tilt-rotor in hover flight are calculated respectively, and the present VBM and RBM are val- idated by comparing the calculated results with available experimental data. Then, unsteady aero- dynamic forces and flowfields of an XV-15 tilt-rotor in different modes, such as a fixed conversion mode at different tilt angles （15°, 30°, 60°） and a whole conversion mode which converses from 0° to 90°, are numerically simulated by the VBM and RBM respectively. By analyses and comparisons on the simulated results of unsteady aerodynamic forces of the tilt-rotor in different modes, some meaningful conclusions about distorted blade-tip vortex distribution and unsteady aerodynamic force variation in a conversion mode are obtained, and these investigation results could provide a good foundation for tilt-rotor aircraft design in the future.

Robust Navier-Stokes method for predicting unsteady flowfield and aerodynamic characteristics of helicopter rotor

A robust unsteady rotor flowfield solver CLORNS code is established to predict the complex unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of rotor flowfield. In order to handle the difficult problem about grid generation around rotor with complex aerodynamic shape in this CFD code,a parameterized grid generated method is established, and the moving-embedded grids are constructed by several proposed universal methods. In this work, the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes（RANS） equations with Spalart-Allmaras are selected as the governing equations to predict the unsteady flowfield of helicopter rotor. The discretization of convective fluxes is accomplished by employing the second-order central difference scheme, third-order MUSCL-Roe scheme, and fifth-order WENO-Roe scheme. Aimed at simulating the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of helicopter rotor, the dual-time scheme with implicit LU-SGS scheme is employed to accomplish the temporal discretization. In order to improve the computational efficiency of holecells and donor elements searching of the moving-embedded grid technology, the ‘‘disturbance diffraction method＂ and ‘‘minimum distance scheme of donor elements method＂ are established in this work. To improve the computational efficiency, Message Passing Interface（MPI） parallel method based on subdivision of grid, local preconditioning method and Full Approximation Storage（FAS） multi-grid method are combined in this code. By comparison of the numerical results simulated by CLORNS code with test data, it is illustrated that the present code could simulate the aerodynamic loads and aerodynamic noise characteristics of helicopter rotor accurately.

Parametric analyses on dynamic stall control of rotor airfoil via synthetic jet

The effects of synthetic jet control on unsteady dynamic stall over rotor airfoil are investigated numerically. A moving-embedded grid method and an Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes（URANS） solver coupled with k-x Shear Stress Transport（SST） turbulence model are established for predicting the complex flowfields of oscillatory airfoil under jet control. Additionally, a velocity boundary condition modeled by sinusoidal function has been developed to fulfill the perturbation effect of periodic jet. The validity of present CFD method is evaluated by comparisons of the calculated results of baseline dynamic stall case for rotor airfoil and jet control case for VR-7 B airfoil with experimental data. Then, parametric analyses are conducted emphatically for an OA212 rotor airfoil to investigate the effects of jet control parameters（jet location, dimensionless frequency, momentum coefficient, jet angle, jet type and dual-jet） on dynamic stall characteristics of rotor airfoil. It is demonstrated by the calculated results that efficiency of jet control could be improved with specific momentum coefficient and jet angle when the jet is located near separation point of rotor airfoil. Furthermore, the dual-jet could improve control efficiency more obviously on dynamic stall of rotor airfoil with respect to the unique jet, and the influence laws of dual-jet＇s angles and momentum coefficients on control effects are similar to those of the unique jet. Finally,unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of rotor via synthetic jet which is located on the upper surface of rotor blade in forward flight are calculated, and as a result, the aerodynamic characteristics of rotor are improved compared with the baseline. The results indicate that synthetic jet has the capability in improving aerodynamic characteristics of rotor.