The main objectives of this research activity are:
- To improve our fundamental understanding of the behavior of helicopters in maneuvering flight, and
- To develop (nonreal-time) helicopter simulation models that can support basic research in helicopter flight dynamics, and the design of flight control systems and active rotor control systems.
We have recently presented the results of the simulation of a helicopter roughly similar to the Sikorsky UH-60 in a descending flight maneuver that takes it into the vortex ring state. The simulation includes a tight coupling between the time-accurate free wake (developed by Dr. J. Gordon Leishman and his coworkers) and a coupled rotor-fuselage model that includes flexible blade modeling (download the paper). The work is part of Dr. Maria Ribera's Ph.D. dissertation.
HeliUM 2 is our helicopter flight dynamic simulation model.