Helikopter pal ucu şeklinin aerodinamik performans ve uç girdabı karakteristiği üzerine etkilerinin deneysel olarak incelenmesi.

This study experimentally investigates the effects of different rotor blade tip shapes on the rotor aerodynamic performance and the tip vortex characteristics in hovering flight. Force, torque and flow field measurements were performed on a 1.3 m diameter 5-bladed model rotor for four different blades: rectangular (RECT), anhedral (ANHD), tapered-swept (TAPER) and tapered-swept-anhedral (TSA). Thrust and torque measurements show that all tip modifications have a positive effect on the aerodynamic performance when compared to the RECT tip configuration especially at low blade loadings. Overall, the ANHD tip configuration gives the best aerodynamic performance at high blade loadings. It reaches a maximum figure of merit (FOM) value of 0.67 and provides a FOM improvement of approximately 0.03 compared to the RECT blade at the tip Mach number (Mtip) of 0.3. Phase-locked particle image velocimetry measurements were conducted at 6◦ intervals between 0◦ -72◦ phase/wake ages at the selected pitch angle of 16◦ and Mtip = 0.4. It is observed that tip modifications change the tip vortex trajectory by increasing radial convection speed and decreasing axial convection speed. ANHD reduces the maximum vortex tangential velocity up to 20%; the TAPER and the TSA reduces it up to 30%. The minimum tip-vortex circulation level is achieved in the case of the ANHD blade, which is in agreement with the highest FOM obtained with this blade.M.S. - Master of Scienc

Experimental investigation of tip anhedral effects on the aerodynamics of a model helicopter rotor in hover

This study experimentally investigates the effects of tip anhedral on the rotor aerodynamic performance and the tip vortex characteristics in hovering flight. A five-bladed scaled helicopter rotor with blades that have either rectangular (baseline) or anhedral tip geometries was used as the experimental model. Thrust and torque measurements were performed at the tip Mach numbers (Mtip) of 0.3 and 0.4 at five different pitch angles. In addition, flow field measurements via phase-locked particle image velocimetry technique were conducted at Mtip = 0.4 for a selected pitch angle. Thrust and torque measurements reveal that the anhedral tip configuration reaches a maximum Figure of Merit (FOM) value of 0.67 yielding approximately 5% FOM improvement when compared to the rectangular blade at Mtip = 0.3. It is observed that the tip anhedral changes the tip vortex trajectory by increasing the radial contraction of the wake and decreasing the average axial convection speed in the range of the wake age considered in this study. The meandering amplitude of the tip vortex increases abruptly after the passage of the proceeding blade in both cases yet a greater increase is observed in the anhedral tip configuration. Moreover, the axial convection of the previously shed tip vortices in the downstream direction is significantly slowed down during the course of the blade passage such that they reside close to the rotor disc in the anhedral case. The resultant proximity of the tip vortices to the blade with anhedral tip configuration promotes the induced flow in the radially inwards direction, which probably attenuates the strength of the newly forming tip vortex. Accordingly, the maximum tangential velocity and circulation of the tip vortex are reduced by 20% and 13%, respectively, when compared to the rectangular blade case. The reduced tip-vortex circulation is consistent with the increased FOM value. A good agreement was found with the Vatistas vortex model using n=3 for the rectangular blade and n=2.2 for the blade with tip anhedral

Experimental investigation of the effects of different helicopter rotor tip geometries on aerodynamic performance and tip vortex characteristics

In this study, the effects of different tip geometries (rectangular, anhedral, swept-tapered and swept-tapered-anhedral) on the rotor hover performance and tip vortex characteristics are investigated experimentally. A scaled rotor model set-up, instrumented with thrust and torque sensors, is used for aerodynamic performance measurements in hover and a two-dimensional (2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV) is used to obtain the tip vortex characteristics such as vortex trajectory, maximum tangential velocity, and circulation. Although taper+swept and taper+swept+anhedral configurations have the best CT/CQ values at lower blade loadings, at higher blade loadings anhedral case has the best performance and an increase of 0.03 figure of merit compared to the baseline. It is observed that different tip shapes change the vortex trajectory, in addition, reduces maximum tangential velocity and circulation significantly. The PIV measurements which were performed at a high blade loading show that there is a correlation between the aerodynamic performance and the vortex strength