CFD analysis of helicopter rotor-fuselage flow interaction in hovering and forward flight conditions

Unsteady compressible flow analyses are carried out to investigate the challenging helicopter rotor–fuselage interaction problem in hover and forward flight conditions. First, the isolated fuselage and the isolated rotor configurations are analyzed to examine the individual effects of each component on the flow field. Then, the rotor-fuselage interaction problem is considered. The isolated fuselage analyses are based on the steady RANS computations. URANS simulations are carried out for the cases with rotor blades. The Realizable k-ε turbulence model is found to perform best for the predictions. The time-dependent rotor analyses are simulated at three different advance ratios. The blade dynamic motions excited by the air loads, which vary periodically in the azimuth direction and also differ based on the advance ratio, have been prescribed by a UDF code embedded into the solver, since these motions cannot be directly represented with the existing commercial code capabilities. Azimuthal variations of the flap and pitch motions of the blades are prescribed a priori as a first order Fourier series through User Defined Function feature of the code. The computational domain was modeled by unstructured hybrid mesh elements. Commonly seen dynamic mesh problems are alleviated by appropriately formed dynamic grids using the spring based smoothing and cell re-meshing methods. The accuracy of the present numerical predictions has been demonstrated by the comparison of obtained results with the experiments and other numerical results available in the open literature. The present single grid methodology has given similar successful results with much lower number of grid elements, thus resulting in much shorter computing times, using modest computational power.