For many years, wind-tunnel testing is a necessity when designing and building a rotorcraft. The first reason is certainly the fact that numerical methods are still far from being capable of accurate rotor and fuselage performance prediction. Even if now there are more and more sophisticated codes, more and more detailed experimental results are needed in order to validate these codes and to fix their domain of validity. The second reason for wind-tunnel testing is to reduce risks and costs in rotorcraft development, especially if using a new design or if flying in a flight domain not yet explored or one that is considered dangerous. Try before flying is perhaps even more necessary for the rotary wing aircraft community than for the fixed-wing community, due to the complexity of the configurations involved in an aircraft having to assure vertical take-off, hover, and forward flight. The third reason for wind-tunnel testing is related to the need for optimized configuration: too many parameters are concerned with this aim and it would be unrealistic to try to build and test too many full-scale prototypes. Wind-tunnel testing is a good way to confirm the performance of a specific design and to select the most appropriate configuration to build for flight testing and validation.
Considerations on Wind-Tunnel Testing Techniques for Rotorcraft
1990
34 pages
Report
No indication
English
TOWARDS A WIND TUNNEL TESTING ENVIRONMENT FOR ROTORCRAFT OPERATIONS CLOSE TO OBSTACLES
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