Alleviation of helicopter fuselage-induced rotor unsteady loads through deterministic variation of the individual blade pitch
The effect of fuselage-induced upwash on the flapwise motion of a hinged rotor blade is considered. The typical upwash field is simulated through the flow produced by a moving point source. The resulting blade response is then approximated by its rigid flapping and first bending mode. The perturbation blade pitch variation required to alleviate its response to the upwash in the sense of either reducing the increased hub shear or minimization of the blade overall time averaged deflection, is determined. Calculations are carried out for a model rotor and for the case with increased Lock number. The results are presented in graph form. It is found that the minimum blade deflection criteria suppress the rigid flapping by a large amount and reduce the peak-to-peak value of the blade hub shear by at least 50 percent without causing an additional increase in blade stresses.