Effects of Aeroelastic Tailoring on Anisotropic Composite Material Beam Models of Helicopter Blades

Abstract

The role of composite materials in modern helicopter blade design has become most important during recent years. By exploiting the directional stiffness properties of these composites, favorable torsion modes or twisting can be achieved. The capability to apply this potential as a design parameter is generally known as aeroelastic tailoring. The bending-torsional coupling of static, hingeless composite rotor blades is investigated using finite element theory. The hingeless blade is treated as a single cell laminated shell beam. Each laminate is composed of different lay-ups of graphite-epoxy composite plies and is categorized as isotropic or anisotropic based upon this lay-up. A systematic study is made to identify the effects of ply orientation and lamina thickness on blade section properties. The results of this study are used to solve the beam equations for composite materials.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1989
Accession Number
ADA213478

Entities

People

  • Patrick G. Forrester

Organizations

  • University of Virginia

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Composite Materials
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computer Programming
  • Finite Element Analysis
  • Helicopter Rotors
  • Laminates
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Mechanics
  • Modulus Of Elasticity
  • Rotary Wing Aircraft
  • Stress Strain Relations
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerodynamics.
  • Mechanical Engineering/Mechanics of Materials.
  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.