Unified Approach for Accurate and Efficient Modeling of Composite Rotor Blade Dynamics The Alexander A. Nikolsky Honorary Lecture

Abstract

Herein is described the development of a unified approach, which spans several decades and facilitates accurate and efficient modeling of composite helicopter rotor blades for loads, dynamics, aeroelasticity, and stress recovery. The approach achieves accuracy comparable to that of three-dimensional finite element analysis but with significant savings in computational effort. The basis for this approach is a mathematical technique called the variational asymptotic method. This paper summarizes the modeling approach and presents some of the key equations of the resulting analyses. Examples are presented that illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the approach as implemented in the computer application Variational Asymptotic Beam Section (VABS) and appropriate beam equations, along with ample citations to published works in which these analyses are developed and/or used.

Revitalising advanced rotorcraft research – and the compound helicopter

“…Ultimately, the AFDD dynamics and aeroelasticity research encompassed hingeless rotor aeroelastic stability, non-linear beam theory, hingeless rotor response, Floquet theory, bearingless rotors and dynamic inflow. Portions of this work were the subject of the 28 th and 34 th Nikolsky Lectures by Peters and Hodges (39,40) . The experimental investigations increased in scope and complexity to validate the correspondingly complex analyses.…”

Viscous Vortex Particle Method Coupling with Computational Structural Dynamics for Rotor Comprehensive Analysis

“…A high fidelity aeroelastic simulation, coupling rotor aerodynamics with structure dynamics, is often required. Research efforts have been undertaken to develop sophisticated and comprehensive analysis methods for rotorcrafts coupling structural [1,2] and aerodynamics models [3,4]. The structural models, also referred to as "computational structural dynamics models" (CSD), perform sophisticated structural dynamics simulations by resorting to nonlinear beam models and different joints in a multibody dynamics framework and carries out the trim calculation.…”

Bending–twisting vibrations of a rotating hub–thin-walled composite beam system

“…Another unified theory of composite rotating slender beams has been developed by Hodges [24]. The author elaborated the variational asymptotic beam sectional analysis (VABS) method.…”