Periodic Reporting for period 3 - FURADO (Full Fairing Rotor Head Aerodynamic Design Optimization)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2019-03-01 al 2020-02-29
The strong demands on safe and efficient flight operations in context of society needs and environmental impacts enforce continuous improvement of the performance of aircraft. The RACER demonstration program includes key technologies for compound rotorcraft configurations aimed on the “development of future products fulfilling expectations in terms of door-to-door mobility, protection of the environment and citizens’ wellbeing better than conventional helicopters.” A key issue enhancing the rotorcraft efficiency in terms of reducing fuel consumption and emission is the improvement of the aerodynamic performance by passive or active means. Here, the focus is on the application and adaptation of CFD methods on enhancement and prediction accuracy with respect to rotor head aerodynamic performance.
The FURADO project is well aligned with the required innovation for high-speed rotorcraft. The project focusses on the aerodynamic design optimization of certain fairings for the rotor head of the compound rotorcraft RACER. Due to the high cruising speed, drag reduction is one of the major goals within the RACER development. The investigated fairings comprise the blade-sleeve fairings, the full-fairing beanie and the pylon fairing. In order to be able to develop these fairings, a sophisticated optimization tool chain has to be created allowing for fully automated aerodynamic shape development. Moreover, the wake flow generated by the developed fairings has to be assessed in order to detect any wake issues causing undesirable excitation of the rotorcraft structure. Finally, the best combination of fairings is selected and mechanically designed, which enables their integration on the RACER demonstrator platform.