Aperiodicity Correction for Rotor Tip Vortex Measurements

Abstract

The initial roll-up of a tip vortex trailing from a model-scale, hovering rotor was measured using particle image velocimetry. The unique feature of the measurements was that a microscope was attached to the camera to allow much higher spatial resolution than hitherto possible. This also posed some unique challenges. In particular, the existing methodologies to correct for aperiodicity in the tip vortex locations could not be easily extended to the present measurements. The difficulty stemmed from the inability to accurately determine the vortex center, which is a prerequisite for the correction procedure. A new method is proposed for determining the vortex center, as well as the vortex core properties, using a least-squares fit approach. This approach has the obvious advantage that the properties are derived from not just a few points near the vortex core, but from a much larger area of ow measurements. Results clearly demonstrate the advantage in the form of reduced variation in the estimated core properties, and also the self-consistent results obtained using three different aperiodicity correction methods.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2011
Accession Number
ADA555353

Entities

People

  • Mahendra J. Bhagwat
  • Manikandan Ramasamy
  • Ryan Paetzel

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Blade Tips
  • Convection
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Flow
  • Flow Fields
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Helicopter Rotors
  • Helicopters
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Measurement
  • Orientation (Direction)
  • Particle Image Velocimetry
  • Reynolds Number
  • Standards
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Educational Psychology
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.