Aerodynamic Performance Analysis of a Shrouded Rotor Using an Unstructured Mesh Flow Solver

The aerodynamic performance of a shrouded tail rotor in hover has been studied by using a compressible inviscid flow solver on unstructured meshes. The numerical method is based on a cell­centered finite-volume discretization and an implicit Gauss-Seidel time integration. The results show that the performance of an isolated rotor without shroud compares well with experiment. In the case of a shrouded rotor, correction of the collective pitch angle is made such that the overall performance matches with experiment to account for the uncertainties of the experimental model configuration. Details of the flow field compare well with the experiment confirming the validity of the present method.