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The presented work tackles the lack of experimental investigations of unsteady laminar-turbulent boundary-layer transition on rotor blades at cyclic pitch actuation, which are important for accurate performance predictions of helicopters in forward flight. Unsteady transition positions were measured on the blade suction side of a four-bladed subscale rotor by means of non-intrusive differential infrared thermography (DIT). Experiments were conducted at different rotation rates corresponding to Mach and Reynolds numbers at 75% rotor radius of up to M 75 = 0.21 and Re 75 = 3.3 × 10 5 and with varying cyclic blade pitch settings. The setup allowed transition to be measured across the outer 54% of the rotor radius. For comparison, transition was also measured using conventional infrared thermography for steady cases with collective pitch settings only. The study is complemented by numerical simulations including boundary-layer transition modeling based on semi-empirical criteria. DIT results reveal the upstream and downstream motion of boundary-layer transition during upstroke and downstroke, a reasonable comparison to experimental results obtained using the already established c p method, and noticeable agreement with numerical simulations. The result is the first systematic study of unsteady boundary-layer transition on a rotor suction side by means of DIT including a comparison to numerical computations. Abbreviations AHD Boundary-layer transition criterion according to Arnal, Habiballah and Delcourt CFD Computational fluid dynamics DIT Differential infrared thermography

An investigation into blade tip vortices of a sub-scale rotor under cyclic pitch conditions is carried out. Background oriented schlieren (BOS), particle image velocimetry (PIV), and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are applied to the same test cases. This approach allows to combine the velocity data from PIV in a measurement plane, the density related data from BOS in a measurement volume, and the comprehensive set of flow variables provided by unsteady detached eddy simulations. Vortices up to an age of $$\varPsi _{{\text {v}}}= {70}^\circ$$ Ψ v = 70 ∘ in case of PIV and CFD, and up to $$\varPsi _{{\text {v}}}= {200}^\circ$$ Ψ v = 200 ∘ in case of BOS are considered. The vortex locations are obtained through all three techniques. The unsteadiness of the vortices was obtained by the experimental results, whereas CFD provides an average solution. An increased position scatter was observed during the downstroke of the pitch cycle with both experimental methods and was found to be in good agreement. In the second part, the PIV velocity data are compared to common vortex models. An approach to link the density distribution and the swirl velocity is applied to the measured data. Based on the CFD results, it is shown that the assumption of isothermal flow yields better agreement between velocity and density than isentropic flow. Graphic abstract

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The study presents an optimized pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) measurement system that was applied to investigate unsteady surface pressures on recently developed double-swept rotor blades in the rotor test facility at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Göttingen. The measurement system featured an improved version of a double-shutter camera that was designed to reduce image blur in PSP measurements on fast rotating blades. It also comprised DLR’s PSP sensor, developed to capture transient flow phenomena (iPSP). Unsteady surface pressures were acquired across the outer 65% of the rotor blade with iPSP and at several radial blade sections by fast-response pressure transducers at blade-tip Mach and Reynolds numbers of $$\mathrm {M}_\mathrm{tip} = 0.282-0.285$$ M tip = 0.282 - 0.285 and $$\mathrm {Re}_\mathrm{tip}= 5.84-5.95 \times 10^5$$ Re tip = 5.84 - 5.95 × 10 5 . The unique experimental setup allowed for scanning surface pressures across the entire pitch cycle at a phase resolution of $${0.225}\,{\mathrm{deg}}$$ 0.225 deg azimuth for different collective and cyclic-pitch settings. Experimental results of both investigated cyclic-pitch settings are compared in detail to a delayed detached eddy simulation using the flow solver FLOWer and to flow visualizations from unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) computations with DLR’s TAU code. The findings reveal a detailed and yet unseen insight into the pressure footprint of double-swept rotor blades undergoing dynamic stall and allow for deducing “stall maps”, where confined areas of stalled flow on the blade are identifiable as a function of the pitch phase. Graphical abstract