Free Wake Analysis of Helicopter Rotor Flow Fields Using a Coupled Vorticity Embedding/Fractional Step Method

Abstract

A hybrid CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method combining a potential-based Vorticity Embedding method with an Euler solver is presented and validated for isolated rotor flows. First, a formulation of Vorticity Embedding is developed and validated for Cartesian grids. This formulation is utilized together with simple lifting lines to represent an isolated rotor in hover. The results for an isolated rotor are then compared with experiment. The method is then hybridized by coupling the Vorticity Embedding grid containing the rotor to a region containing a ground plane where a standard finite difference Euler solver is utilized. initial results from this hybrid scheme are presented including a demonstration of the code's potential to calculate the ground vortex roll-up generated by a rotor in ground effect in the presence of a cross-wind.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 27, 2000
Accession Number
ADA385910

Entities

People

  • Jamie R. Kucab

Organizations

  • University of Tennessee Space Institute

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Differential Equations
  • Euler Equations
  • Flow
  • Flow Fields
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Ground Effect
  • Helicopter Rotors
  • Helicopters
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Poisson Equation
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.