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Tiltrotor CFD Part I - validation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

A. Jimenez-Garcia ,
G.N. Barakos  and
S. Gates
A. Jimenez-Garcia
Affiliation:
CFD Laboratory, School of Engineering, James Watt South Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
G.N. Barakos*
Affiliation:
CFD Laboratory, School of Engineering, James Watt South Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
S. Gates
Affiliation:
Leonardo Helicopters, Aerodynamics Department, Yeovil, United Kingdom
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper presents performance analyses of the model-scale ERICA and TILTAERO tiltrotors and of the full-scale XV-15 rotor with high-fidelity computational fluids dynamics. For the ERICA tiltrotor, the overall effect of the blades on the fuselage was well captured, as demonstrated by analysing surface pressure measurements. However, there was no available experimental data for the blade aerodynamic loads. A comparison of computed rotor loads with experiments was instead possible for the XV-15 rotor, where CFD results predicted the FoM within 1.05%. The method was also able to capture the differences in performance between hover and propeller modes. Good agreement was also found for the TILTAERO loads. The overall agreement with the experimental data and theory for the considered cases demonstrates the capability of the present CFD method to accurately predict tiltrotor flows. In a second part of this work, the validated method is used for blade shape optimisation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 121 , Issue 1239 , May 2017 , pp. 577 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 2017 

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