AERODYNAMIC INTERACTION STUDY OF THE PROPELLER WING UNDER DIFFERENT FLOW CONFIGURATIONS

Interactional aerodynamics could significantly affect the rotary wing performance, the airframe loads, as well as the handling qualities of aircraft. It has become necessary for the nature of the vortical slips tream and its interference with aircraft components to be understood o ver a wide range of flight operating conditions. The propeller/wing ae rodynamic interaction phenomena have been experimentally investigated at low subsonic speeds on a propeller/nacelle/half-wing configuration (P/N/W2). The P/N/W2 ensemble has been studied under different wind-tu nnel flow configurations to simulate different conditions of the whole night envelope including axial, conversion/reconversion, and hovering flights. The experimental investigation has been based on extensive o verall and local data measurements performed on the propeller, the wak e geometry, and the half-wing. The results exhibited the considerable influence of the flow configuration and the tilt angle parameter on th e nature of the wake distortion due to the half-wing. It is also shown that such tip vortex trajectories distortions strongly affect both th e instantaneous and mean lift and drag distributions along the half-wi ng span.