CFD Analysis of Helicopter Wakes in Ground Effect

The paper presents CFD results for the wake of a helicopter flying a low altitude at different advance ratios. The wakes are assessed in terms of topology and velocity magnitudes. The structure of the wake near ground changes rapidly with the advance ratio and its decay appears to be faster than what is suggested by theoretical analyses. The results show clear the potential of modern CFD for use in helicopter safety and highlights the need for detailed surveys of helicopter wakes using full-scale physical experiments

Method for calculating rotors with active gurney flaps

This paper builds on the Helicopter Multi-Block version 2 computational-fluid-dynamics solver of the University of Liverpool and demonstrates the implementation and use of Gurney flaps on wings and rotors. The idea is to flag any cell face within the computational mesh with a solid, no-slip boundary condition. Hence, the infinitely thin Gurney can be approximated by “blocking cells” in the mesh. Comparison between thick Gurney flaps and infinitely thin Gurneys showed no difference on the integrated loads; the same flow structure was captured and the same vortices were identified ahead and behind the Gurney. The results presented for various test cases suggest that the method is simple and efficient, and it can therefore be used for routine analysis of rotors with Gurney flaps. Moreover, the current method adds to the flexibility of the solver because no special grids are required, and Gurney flaps can be easily implemented. Simple two-dimensional aerofoil, three-dimensional wing, and rotors in hover and forward flight were tested with fixed, linearly actuated, and swinging Gurneys, and the ability of the code to deploy a Gurney flap within the multiblock mesh is highlighted. The need for experimental data suitable for validation of computational-fluid-dynamics methods for cases of rotors with Gurney flaps is also highlighted

Computational aeroelastic analysis of a hovering W3 Sokol blade with gurney flap

This paper demonstrates the potential effect of a gurney flap on the performance of the W3-Sokol rotor blade in hover. A rigid blade was first considered and the calculations were conducted at several thrust settings. The gurney flap was extended from 46%R to 66%R and it was located at the trailing edge of the main rotor blade. Four different sizes of gurney flaps were studied, 2%, 1%, 0.5% and 0.3% of the chord. The biggest flap proved to be the most effective. A second study considered elastic blades with and without the gurney flap. The results were trimmed at the same thrust values as the rigid blade and indicate an increase of aerodynamic performance when the gurney flap is used, especially for high thrust cases

Processing and analysis methods for transonic cavity flow

This paper focuses on the localisation of noise sources in transonic cavity flows. Beamforming is used to estimate the pressure fluctuations inside a resonant transonic cavity, showing the localisation of the main sources of noise using an acoustic array and also combining it with a mean flow-field. The influence of the microphone array position, density, and shape is investigated. The presented method models the noise propagation with simple assumptions that are easily applicable to wind tunnel testing and may help localise the noise sources from complex geometries without intrusive methods

CFD code comparison for 2D airfoil flows

The current paper presents the effort, in the EU AVATAR project, to establish the necessary requirements to obtain consistent lift over drag ratios among seven CFD codes. The flow around a 2D airfoil case is studied, for both transitional and fully turbulent conditions at Reynolds numbers of 3 × 106 and 15 × 106. The necessary grid resolution, domain size, and iterative convergence criteria to have consistent results are discussed, and suggestions are given for best practice. For the fully turbulent results four out of seven codes provide consistent results. For the laminar-turbulent transitional results only three out of seven provided results, and the agreement is generally lower than for the fully turbulent case

Final results from the EU project AVATAR: aerodynamic modelling of 10 MW wind turbines

This paper presents final results from the EU project AVATAR in which aerodynamic models are improved and validated for wind turbines on a scale of 10 MW and more. Special attention is paid to the improvement of low fidelity engineering (BEM based) models with higher fidelity (CFD) models but also with intermediate fidelity free vortex wake (FVW) models. The latter methods were found to be a good basis for improvement of induction modelling in engineering methods amongst others for the prediction of yawed cases, which in AVATAR was found to be one of the most challenging subjects to model. FVW methods also helped to improve the prediction of tip losses. Aero-elastic calculations with BEM based and FVW based models showed that fatigue loads for normal production cases were over predicted with approximately 15% or even more. It should then be realised that the outcome of BEM based models does not only depend on the choice of engineering add-ons (as is often assumed) but it is also heavily dependent on the way the induced velocities are solved. To this end an annulus and element approach are discussed which are assessed with the aid of FVW methods. For the prediction of fatigue loads the so-called element approach is recommended but the derived yaw models rely on an annulus approach which pleads for a generalised solution method for the induced velocities

CFD Analysis of Helicopter Wakes in Ground Effect

The paper presents CFD results for the wake of a helicopter flying a low altitude at different advance ratios. The wakes are assessed in terms of topology and velocity magnitudes. The structure of the wake near ground changes rapidly with the advance ratio and its decay appears to be faster than what is suggested by theoretical analyses. The results show clear the potential of modern CFD for use in helicopter safety and highlights the need for detailed surveys of helicopter wakes using full-scale physical experiments

Latest results from the EU project AVATAR: aerodynamic modelling of 10 MW wind turbines

This paper presents the most recent results from the EU project AVATAR in which aerodynamic models are improved and validated for wind turbines on a scale of 10 MW and more. Measurements on a DU 00-W-212 airfoil are presented which have been taken in the pressurized DNW-HDG wind tunnel up to a Reynolds number of 15 Million. These measurements are compared with measurements in the LM wind tunnel for Reynolds numbers of 3 and 6 Million and with calculational results. In the analysis of results special attention is paid to high Reynolds numbers effects. CFD calculations on airfoil performance showed an unexpected large scatter which eventually was reduced by paying even more attention to grid independency and domain size in relation to grid topology. Moreover calculations are presented on flow devices (leading and trailing edge flaps and vortex generators). Finally results are shown between results from 3D rotor models where a comparison is made between results from vortex wake methods and BEM methods at yawed conditions

Study of Blade/Vortex interaction using Computational Fluid Dynamics and Computational Aeroacoustics

Abstract A parametric study of the aerodynamics and the acoustics of parallel BVI has been carried out for different aerofoil shapes and vortex properties. Computing BVI using Computational Fluid Dynamics is challenging since the solution scheme tends to alter the characteristics of the vortex which must be preserved until the interaction. The present work uses the Compressible Vorticity Confinement Method (CVCM) for capturing the vortex characteristics, which is easier to implement and has minimal overhead in the performance of existing CFD solvers either in terms of CPU time or robustness during convergence. Apart from applying the CVCM method with an upwind solver, something not encountered in the literature, the present work couples CFD with Computational Aeroacoustics (CAA) and uses the strengths of both techniques in order to predict the nearfield and farfield noise. Results illustrate the importance of the aerofoil shape at transonic flow and show that the magnitude of the BVI noise depends strongly on the vortex strength and the miss-distance. The effect of the vortex core radius was also found to be important

Evaluation of Rotor Blade Models for Rotor Outwash

In this work Computational Fluid Dynamics is used as a tool for rotor outwash evaluation. The paper concentrates on the validation of the method, presents different modelling approaches and concludes with suggestions on the use of the method for detailed simulations of rotor outwash. The required computer resources for the detailed computations of the wake are also discussed