A Coupled CFD/Trim Analysis of Coaxial Rotors

TL;DR

This paper presents a coupled CFD and trim analysis method for coaxial rotors, accurately predicting aerodynamic performance in hover and forward flight by adjusting blade pitch angles to meet target forces and moments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel coupled CFD and trim analysis approach for coaxial rotors, validated against experimental data for improved aerodynamic prediction accuracy.

Findings

Predicted hover performances match experimental data closely.

The method accurately simulates lift-offset conditions in forward flight.

Reasonable agreement with other computational results is achieved.

Abstract

A numerical simulation method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) coupling with a trim analysis for coaxial rotor systems is described in this paper. The trim analysis is implemented using a rotorcraft flow solver, rFlow3D. Six target forces and moments, which are the thrust of the coaxial rotor system, the rolling and pitching moments for each upper and lower rotor, and the torque balance for yaw control, are considered as the trim conditions. The blade pitch angles of both upper and lower rotors are adjusted to satisfy the target trim conditions through the trim analysis by being loosely coupled with the CFD solver. Verification of the trim analysis method and validation of the prediction accuracy of aerodynamic performance are performed based on previous experimental and numerical studies in hover and forward flight using the lift-offset conditions. It is shown that the predicted hover performances of the torque-balanced coaxial rotors are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. It is also verified that the lift-offset conditions in forward flight are simulated using this established trim analysis. Furthermore, reasonable agreements with other computational results are indicated.