Detailed aerodynamic analysis of a shrouded tail rotor using an unstructured mesh flow solver

Abstract

The detailed aerodynamics of a shrouded tail rotor in hover has been numerically studied using a parallel inviscid flow solver on unstructured meshes. The numerical method is based on a cell-centered finite-volume discretization and an implicit Gauss-Seidel time integration. The calculation was made for a single blade by imposing a periodic boundary condition between adjacent rotor blades. The grid periodicity was also imposed at the periodic boundary planes to avoid numerical inaccuracy resulting from solution interpolation. The results were compared with available experimental data and those from a disk vortex theory for validation. It was found that realistic three-dimensional modeling is important for the prediction of detailed aerodynamics of shrouded rotors including the tip clearance gap flow.