Predicting BVI Loadings and Wake Structure of the HART II Rotor Using Adaptive Unstructured Meshes

Abstract

The flow fields around the HARTⅡ rotor were numerically investigated using a viscous flow solver on adaptive unstructured meshes. An overset mesh and a deforming mesh technique were used to handle the blade motion including blade deflection, which was obtain from the HARTⅡ experimental data. A solution-adaptive mesh refinement technique was also used to capture the rotor wake effectively. Comparison of the sectional normal force and pitching moment at 87% radial station between the two cases, with and without the blade deflection, showed that the blade loading is significantly affected by blade torsion. It was found that as the mesh was refined, the strength of tip vortex is better preserved, and the magnitude of high frequency blade loading, caused by blade-vortex interaction (BVI), is further magnified. It was also found that a proper time step size, which corresponds to the cell size, should be used to predict unsteady solutions accurately. In general, the numerical results in terms of the unsteady blade loading and the rotor wake show good agreement with the experimental data.