Aeroelastic Tailoring of Helicopter Blades

Donatien Cornette (1) , Benjamin Kerdreux (1) , Guilhem Michon (2) , Yves Gourinat (2)

1 Airbus Helicopters
2 ICA - Institut Clément Ader

The dynamic loads transmitted from the rotor to the airframe are responsible for vibrations, discomfort and alternate stress on components. A new and promising way to minimize vibration is to reduce dynamic loads at their source by performing an aeroelastic optimization of the rotor. This optimization uses couplings between the flapwise-bending motion and the torsion motion. The impacts of elastic couplings (composite anisotropy) and inertial couplings (center-of-gravity offset) on blade dynamic behavior and on dynamic loads are evaluated in this paper. First, analytical results, based on a purely linear modal approach, are given to understand the influence of these couplings on blade dynamic behavior. Then, a complete nonlinear aeroelastic model of the rotor, including elastic and inertial couplings, is derived. Finally, this last model is used to improve a simplified but representative blade (homogeneous beam with constant chord) and results are presented.

Domaines: Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Donatien Cornette, Benjamin Kerdreux, Guilhem Michon, Yves Gourinat. Aeroelastic Tailoring of Helicopter Blades. Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics, 2015, 10 (6), pp.061001--061001--12. ⟨hal-01951219⟩