CFD Analysis of Flowfields around a Helicopter Rotor Operating over a Flight Deck

Abstract

To land a helicopter on a flight deck of a ship is said to be one of difficult operations even for experienced pilots because the helicopter rotor is affected by complex flows, e.g. ship airwakes and interference flows formed between the rotor and superstructures, in addition to ship motions. Therefore, it is important to grasp quantitatively influence of these complex flows on the helicopter rotor for securing the safe deck-landing. In this paper, CFD analysis of helicopter rotor operating over a flight deck is done by solving unsteady 3D compressible Euler equations with an overlapped grid system. The superstructure on a flight deck is modeled by a simple sharp edged bluff body. Parameters for numerical analysis are landing spot and relative wind speed to the rotor and ship. Effects of these parameters on the rotor torque, flowfields around the rotor and inflow distributions on the rotor disc are clarified.