No abstract

A three-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes solver, KFLOW, using overlapped grids has recently been developed to simulate unsteady flow phenomena over helicopter rotor blades. The blade-vortex interaction is predicted for a descending flight using measured blade deformation data. The effects of computational grid resolution and azimuth angle increments on airloads were examined, and computed airloads and vortex trajectories were compared with HART-II wind tunnel data. The current method predicts the BVI phenomena of blade airloads reasonably well. It is found from the present study that a peculiar distribution of vorticity of tip vortices in an approximate azimuth angle range of 90 to 180 degrees can be explained by physics of the shear-layer interaction as well as the dissipation of numerical schemes.