Publication

Abstract : The preliminary design stage of helicopters consists of various operations and in each operation design several detailed analysis tasks are needed. The analysis tasks include performance and the required power estimation. In helicopter design, those are usually carried out by adopting the momentum theory. In this paper, an explicit form of computational analysis based on the blade element theory and uniform/non-uniform inflow model is developed. The other motivation of the present development is to obtain trim and required power estimation for various helicopter configurations. Sectional and hub loads, power, trim, and flapping equations are derived by using a symbolic tool. Iterative computations are carried out till convergence is achieved in the blade response, inflow, and trim. The predictions regarding the trim and power estimation turn out to be correlated well with the experimental results. The effect of inflow is further investigated. It is found that the present prediction for the lateral cyclic pitch angle is improved with the non-uniform inflow model as compared to that by the uniform inflow model. The presently improved trim and power estimation will be useful for future helicopter sizing and performance analysis.