An Unstructured Mesh Technique for Rotor Aerodynamics

An unstructured mesh method has been developed for the simulation of steady and time-accurate flows around helicopter rotors. A dynamic and quasi-unsteady solution-adaptive mesh refinement technique was adopted for the enhancement of the solution accuracy in the local region of interest involving highly vortical flows. Applications were made to the 2-D blade-vortex interaction aerodynamics and the 3-D rotor blades in hover. The interaction between the rotor and the airframe in forward flight was investigated by introducing an overset mesh technique.