Development of a comprehensive and modular modelling, analysis and simulation tool for helicopters

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2011
Yücekayalı, Arda
Helicopter flight dynamic, rotor aerodynamic and dynamic analyses activities have been a great dispute since the first helicopters, at both design and test stages. Predicting rotor aerodynamic and dynamic characteristics, helicopter dynamic behavior and trimmed flight conditions is a huge challenge to engineers as it involves the tradeoff between accuracy, fidelity, complexity and computational cost. Flight dynamic activities such as; predicting trim conditions, helicopter dynamic behavior and simulation of a flight condition or maneuver mostly require analysis tools with low computational cost and complexity. However this decreases accuracy and fidelity of the model. On the other hand, analyses at design stages, such as; blade geometric and structural design mostly requires accurate and higher fidelity aerodynamic load predictions over the rotor disk. Contrarily this brings high computational cost and complexity. Therefore separate analysis tools for each objective or one complete tool that can be used for all purposes are essential. Throughout this study a helicopter mathematical including trim model with a selective and modular structure is developed as a generic analysis tool. The selective structure enables the mathematical model to be used in both flight dynamic and comprehensive analysis while the modular structure plays a role as an infrastructure for further developments. The mathematical model developed is validated with flight test data of several helicopters. Besides, commercial helicopter comprehensive analysis tools are used to validate the mathematical model analyses. Results showed good agreement with the compared data.

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Citation Formats
A. Yücekayalı, “Development of a comprehensive and modular modelling, analysis and simulation tool for helicopters,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2011.