EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF ROTOR AERODYNAMICS IN FORWARD FLIGHT

This paper concerns an experimental and numerical investigation of the aerodynamic field of a model rotor in forward night, The study emphas izes the characterization of the flowfield in the immediate vicinity o f the blade and in its near wake. The analysis of the blade aerodynami cs is supported by measurements performed on the overall airloads, the three-dimensional velocity field around the blade and in the wake (de termined by means of laser Doppler anemometry measurements), and the g eometry of the tip vortex path, The corresponding data results allow t he correlation of typical velocity profiles to the vortex characterist ics parameters, From the computational approach, the prediction effici ency of a prescribed wake analysis code and its improvement are checke d by direct comparisons with experiments performed either on the tip v ortex path, or on the three-dimensional, velocity field and the circul ation distribution along the blade span.