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In this work, the Blade Vortex Interaction (BVI) airloads characteristic for a rotor in descending flight condition is investigated using a nonlinear flexible multibody dynamics analysis code DYMORE. A free vortex wake model is incorporated into the comprehensive analysis system and improvement of airloads prediction as well as collective and cyclic pitch control settings is obtained over the finite-state dynamic inflow model that is adopted in the conventional DYMORE analysis. The three test conditions in the HART (Higher harmonic control Aeroacoustic Rotor Test) II are considered to illustrate the present investigation. It is found that the BVI airloads characteristic is significantly influenced by the higher harmonic pitch control inputs. The influence of BVI oscillatory peaks along with the miss-distance between the blade and the vortices is studied in detail to identify the mechanism of reducing noise and vibration in the HART II experiment.

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.

This paper deals with the State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) method for designing a rotorcraft flight controller. It focuses on the design of the SDRE controller when a highly complex rotorcraft mathematical model is used. The requirements of the rotorcraft model are investigated to design the SDRE controller and to validate the final designs. Since the SDRE method can be applied to a deterministic system, adequate fidelity in the rotorcraft mathematical model is crucial to guarantee controller performance. However, a complex mathematical model generally prevents us from analytically deriving the State Dependent Coefficient (SDC) form of the system equations, which conforms to the basic structure of the SDRE method. This paper proposes a pure numerical procedure for SDC factorization of the motion equation. The numerical methods available to solve the algebraic Riccati equation are selected to cope with the inherent system instability and are applied to the trajectory tracking problems. The overall feature of the present approach is highlighted through analysis of a bob-up and turn maneuver. The results can be utilized as a guide for appropriate selection of rotorcraft mathematical models and numerical methods in designing a robust SDRE controller.

This paper deals with a nonlinear optimal control approach to helicopter inverse simulation. The reference trajectory is prescribed in prior, and the integral deviation from this trajectory is treated as an additional penalty cost to convert the system optimality to an unconstrained optimal control problem. The resultant two-point boundary value problem has been solved by a multiple-shooting algorithm. The nonlinear helicopter model in this study includes main rotor flap dynamics and a dynamic inflow model. The applications cover the inverse simulation for bob up, turn, and slalom maneuvers. This paper focuses on resolving the convergence issue using the indirect method, the main root causes of which are related to the inherent system instability of the helicopter and with poor initial guesses on state and costate variables. For this reason we will investigate the effect of the shooting node number on convergence and use a hybrid-model approach, where the optimal state and costate variables, calculated using the linear model, are used as initial guesses for those using the nonlinear model. The analyses show good convergence history and capability of tracking the prescribed trajectory. So the results in this paper can provide a valuable motivation for applying indirect methods to nonlinear helicopter flight mechanic analysis.