Dynamic Mesh Analyses of Helicopter Rotor–Fuselage Flow Interaction in Forward Flight

Abstract

AbstractUnsteady compressible flow analyses of helicopter rotor–fuselage interaction in hover and forward flight conditions are carried out using commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver FLUENT. The individual effects of each component on the flow are investigated by simulating the isolated fuselage and the isolated rotor configurations. Then, the rotor-fuselage interaction problem is analyzed. Azimuthal variations of the flap and pitch motions of the blades are prescribed a priori as a first-order Fourier series through a user-defined function feature of the code. The prescribed blade motion may result in meshes with undesirable grid qualities, which may lead to unphysical solutions. A non-overset dynamic mesh motion method that applies volume mesh deformation and cell remeshing within a priori organized block mesh structure is used to accommodate the rigid blade motion. The remeshing is performed when the grid deformation is more than a predefined skewness value of 0.95. The near...