Project Title:

Fast Modeling Technology for General Rotor/Surface Interaction

  94-1	02.05	9282

  Fast Modeling Technology for General Rotor/Surface Interaction

Abstract:

Predicting the behavior of surface-bounded vortical flows is 
critical for a variety of aeronautical problems. This proposal 
involves the development and application of new, efficient 
approaches to modeling such complex flows that will not only 
provide a predictive capability including wall or fuselage effects 
but also provide a unified model of rotor wake behavior for 
arbitrary advance ratios. This will be accomplished by building on 
existing work in non-time-domain analyses of vortex wake dynamics 
while applying innovative numerical approaches, including reduced-
memory free wake relaxation methods, an O(N) fast vortex method, 
and fast boundary element calculations. The coupling of these 
methods to an existing comprehensive rotor code will produce a 
general analysis of rotor aerodynamics at arbitrary advance ratio 
for application to cases both with and without boundary effects. 
Applications include the assessment of ground effect, rotor/body 
interaction, and the correction of wind tunnel data to free air 
conditions, in particular rotors in low-speed. The analysis 
technology developed here will be extensible to a wide range of 
aeronautical and nonaeronautical applications.

A combined Phase I / Phase II effort would produce software capable 
of efficient modeling of a wide range of enclosed and unenclosed 
rotor/body combinations, supporting design, analysis, and testing 
work in the rotorcraft community. This technology would be 
applicable to essentially any design task for incompressible fixed 
wing aerodynamics, while also being extensible to compressible 
flows. The highly efficient surface panel modeling would also 
benefit the whole class of boundary element methods, both within 
and outside aeronautical disciplines.

Key words

Continuum Dynamics, Inc.
J.O. Box 3073
Princeton, NJ  08543-3073