| The accurate depiction of helicopter rotor performance relies on the use of comprehensive analysis codes to efficiently predict performance, vibrations, and aeroelastic properties. Currently, most analysis relies upon airfoil tables that provide aerodynamic characteristics from a combination of wind tunnel data, empirical data, and numerical analyses. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has the potential to accurately replace the current analysis methods with the use of advanced computers; presented is a new 2-D CFD applied to rotorcraft studies. The analysis performed utilized the SC 1095 airfoil because of the large amount of previous wind tunnel testing and prior CFD analysis. In this thesis it is shown that the Flowfield Dependent Variation (FDV) method of CFD is able to produce a strong correlation of experimental and theoretical results with greater efficiency when compared to other CFD codes. The FDV method is also able to accurately predict the wind tunnel results of the lift coefficient for a rotorcraft airfoil over a range of Mach numbers. |
