Euler solutions for the flow around a hovering helicopter rotor

Abstract

A method for computing the flow around a hovering helicopter rotor is presented. The solution procedure is divided into two parts. The first part is a finite volume solution of the Euler equations for the near field flow around a rotor blade. The second part is a free wake approach for determining the wake geometry and induced velocities. These two parts are solved in a coupled fashion. The rolled-up vortex wake of the rotor is included in the Euler computational domain through a nonlinear perturbation technique. This eliminates the numerical diffusion of the wake vorticity due to truncation error and artificial viscosity without the need for excessive grid resolution near the vortex core. The method is used to compute both hovering rotor and wing/vortex interaction flows, and the results are compared to experiment.