Investigation of Rotor Performance and Loads of a UH-60A Individual Blade Control System

Abstract

Wind tunnel measurements of performance, loads, and vibration of a full-scale UH-60A Black Hawk main rotor with an individual blade control (IBC) system are compared with calculations obtained using the comprehensive helicopter analysis CAMRAD II and a coupled CAMRAD II/OVERFLOW 2 analysis. Measured data show a 5.1% rotor power reduction (8.6% rotor lift to effective-drag ratio increase) using 2/rev IBC actuation with 2.0 deg amplitude at mu = 0.4. At the optimum IBC phase for rotor performance, IBC actuator force (pitch link force) decreased, but both flap and chord bending moments did not change much. CAMRAD II predicts the rotor power variations with IBC phase reasonably well at mu = 0.35. However, the correlation degrades at mu = 0.4. Coupled CAMRAD II/OVERFLOW 2 shows excellent correlation with the measured rotor power variations with IBC phase at both mu = 0.35 and mu = 0.4. Maximum reduction of IBC actuator force is better predicted with CAMRAD II, but general trends are better captured with the coupled analysis. The correlation of vibratory hub loads is generally poor by both methods, although the coupled analysis somewhat captures general trends.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA532073

Entities

People

  • Ethan A. Romander
  • Hyeonsoo Yeo
  • Thomas R. Norman

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Actuators
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Amplitude
  • Bending Moments
  • Blade Tips
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Control Systems
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Helicopters
  • Measurement
  • Reliability
  • Rotary Wing Aircraft
  • Simulations
  • Vibration
  • Wind Tunnel Tests
  • Wind Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerodynamics.
  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Mathematics or Statistics