Numerical Investigation on a Rotor Tip-Vortex Instability in Very Low Advance Ratio Flight

Helical tip vortex is known as stable vortex structure, however the specific frequency component of far wake perturbation induces the vortex pairing in hover and axial flight. It is expected that the tip vortex pairing phenomena may happen in transition flight and very low advance ratio flight so that inflow may be most nonuniform in the low advance ratio flight. The objectives of this paper are that a tip-vortex instability during the transition from hover into very low advance ratio forward flight is numerically predicted to understand a physics by using a time-marching free-wake method. To achieve the objectives, numerical method is firstly validated in typical axial and forward flights cases. Present scheme with trim routine can predict airloads and inflow distribution of forward flight with good accuracy. Then, the transition flight condition is calculated. The rotor used in this wake calculation is a small-scale AH-1G model. By using a tip-vortex trajectory tracking method, the tip-vortex pairing process are clearly observed in transient flight($\mu$=0.03) and disappears at a slightly higher advance ratio($\mu$=0.05). According to the steady flight simulation at $\mu$=0.03, it is confirmed the tip-vortex pairing process is continued in the rear part of rotor disk and not occurs in the front part. Time averaged inflow in this case is predicted as smooth distribution.