Air and Structural Loads Analysis of a 5-Ton Class Rotorcraft in a Pull-Up Maneuver Using CFD/CSD Coupled Approach

The air and structural loads of a 5-ton class light helicopter (LH) rotor in a 2.24 g pull-up maneuver are investigated using a coupling between the computational structural dynamics (CSD) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. The LH rotor is characterized by a five-bladed system with elastomeric bearings and inter-bladed dampers. The periodic trim solution along with the converged CFD/CSD delta airloads obtained in steady-level flight (advance ratio of 0.287) are used to perform the transient CSD maneuver analysis. The resulting vehicle attitude angles and velocity profiles of the aircraft are then prescribed in the quasi-static (QS) CFD maneuver analysis. It is demonstrated that the present QS approach provides an effective means for the maneuver loads’ analysis. The important flow behaviors such as BVI (blade–vortex interaction)-induced oscillations and the negative pitching moment peaks met in maneuver flight are captured nicely with the proposed method. Either the vortex trajectories or the surface pressure distributions are examined to identify the sources of the oscillations. A loose CFD/CSD coupling (LC) is used to predict the blade elastic motions, structural moments, and pitch link loads at the specified maneuver revolution of the rotor and also to correlate these with the transient CSD-based predictions. A reasonable correlation is obtained. The LC results show more pronounced 5P (five per revolution) oscillations on the structural response than those of the CSD-based methods.