Abstract:
The UH-60A slowed rotor test campaign carried out at the 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel at the U.S. Air Force's National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) provided valuable information of a classical helicopter rotor blades operating at very high advance ratios. This paper aims to show the correlation of the RCAS and HOST comprehensive analysis (CA) tools with respect to several experimental campaign cases. Particularly the influence of the rotor aerodynamic performance as a function of the advance ratio and the collective angle is studied. The influence of the shank drag modeling is observed and its importance to obtain accurate results is highlighted. The RCAS and HOST simulations are capable of reproducing the rotor performance trends observed in the test campaign. Furthermore, the correlation of RCAS and HOST with respect to the measured rotor loads data is studied for the advance rations of 0.4, 0.5 and 0.7 at iso-thrust coefficient conditions. The aerodynamic loads and the structural loads are analyzed by means of the sectional loads analysis and polar maps. Finally some conclusions are provided highlighting the correlation of the RCAS and HOST results as well as the impact of the advance ratio on the behavior of the blades.