• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.23-30
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• 2010

Regarding the aircrafts with a rotor blade system, the miniaturization of them is limited due to the rotor blade length and the tail rotor system. To miniaturize an aircraft, an equipment is required that increases thrust and also shortens the length of the rotor blade. The present study will conduct the flow analysis for miniaturizing the aircraft by applying a duct to the coaxial rotor blade system without tail rotor. First, the verification on the calculated results was conducted through the computational flow analysis on the coaxial rotor blade system without a duct. Then, the flow analysis for the coaxial rotor blade systems was performed including Ka-60 duct, Single duct, Twin duct, and Double duct, respectively. From the numerical results, the thrust coefficient appeared higher with the duct than without a duct for the coaxial rotor blade system. Especially, in the case of Double duct, the thrust was improved due to the increase of incoming flow and the extension of the wake area. These results will be used as the basic concepts for miniaturizing the aircraft with the rotor blade system. The flow analysis on the coaxial rotor blade system including the fuselage remains as a future work.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.614-623
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• 2015

When the speed of a coaxial rotor helicopter in forward flight increases, the wake skew angle of the rotor increases and consequently the position of the vena contracta of the upper rotor with respect to the lower rotor changes. Considering ambient air and the effect of the upper rotor, this study proposes a nonuniform inflow model for the lower rotor of a coaxial rotor helicopter in forward flight. The total required power of the coaxial rotor system was compared against Dingeldein's experimental data, and the results of the proposed model were well matched. A plant model was also developed from first principles for flight simulation, unknown parameter estimation and control analysis. The coaxial rotor helicopter used for this study was manufactured for surveillance and reconnaissance and does not have any stabilizer bar. Therefore, a feedback controller was included during flight test and parameter estimation to overcome unstable situations. Predicted responses of parameter estimation and validation show good agreement with experimental data. Therefore, the methodology described in this paper can be used to develop numerical plant model, study non-uniform inflow model, conduct performance analysis and parameter estimation of coaxial rotor as well as other rotorcrafts in forward flight.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.1011-1018
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• 2021

This numerical study conducts the modeling and the hover performance analyses of coaxial co-rotating rotor(or stacked rotor), using a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code, CAMRAD II. The important design parameters such as the index angle and axial spacing for the coaxial co-rotating rotor are varied in this simulation study. The coaxial co-rotating rotor is trimmed using the torque value of the upper rotor of the previous coaxial counter-rotating rotor or the total thrust value of the previous coaxial counter-rotating rotor in hover. The maximum increases in the rotor thrust is 1.84% for the index angle of -10° when using the torque trim approach. In addition, the maximum decreases in the rotor power is 4.53% for the index angle of 20° with the thrust trim method. Thus, the present study shows that the hover performance of the coaxial co-rotating rotor for e-VTOL aircraft can be changed by the index angle.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.311-318
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• 2020

This study investigates the performance and blade airloads for a rigid coaxial rotor of high-speed compound unmanned rotorcrafts. The present compound unmanned rotorcraft uses not only a rigid coaxial rotor, but also wings and propellers for high-speed flights. For the rigid coaxial rotor in this work, CAMRAD II, a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code, is used to study the performance at a flight speed of up to 250 knots and blade section lift forces at 230 knots. As the flight speed increases, the rotor power decreases; however, the power of propellers increases to overcome the drag force of a rotorcraft in high-speed flight. The effective lift-to-drag ratio of a rotor has the maximum value of about 11.6 which is much higher than the value of the conventional helicopter. The blade section lift forces of the upper and lower rotors at 230 knots show the similar variation trends for one rotor revolution, and the impulses because of the aerodynamic interaction between both rotors are observed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.497-505
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• 2022

Performance and hub vibratory load analyses for a lift-offset coaxial rotor are conducted using a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code, CAMRAD II. The lift-offset coaxial rotor is trimmed to match the total rotor thrust(lift-offset coaxial rotor's thrust) or the individual rotor thrust(upper and lower rotor thrusts, respectively) in this study. The individual rotor's lift and torque, and effective rotor lift to drag ratio for the total rotor are investigated for various advance ratios and lift-offset values. The two result sets with different trim methods are similar to each other and they are correlated well with the wind-tunnel test results. Therefore, the present study using CAMRAD II validates successfully the aeromechanics modeling and analysis techniques for the lift-offset coaxial rotor.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.8
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• pp.597-609
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• 2020

These days, the coaxial rotor system is used for various purposes like UAVs, Mars exploration helicopters, and the next-generation high-speed rotorcraft. A number of research projects on aerodynamic performance of rotor systems, including the coaxial configuration have been made previously. On the contrary, research on rotor blade deformation has been mainly carried out regarding the single rotor system, where such effort has not been enough on the coaxial system. Nonetheless, in case of the coaxial system, blade deformation analysis is much more important because of the complex air flow around the rotors, and that the distance between the two rotors is a key factor affects aerodynamic performance of the entire system. For these reasons, an experimental study on rotor blade deformation of the coaxial system was conducted using the Stereo Pattern Recognition(SPR) technique, one of the state-of-the-art of photogrammetry method. In this research, a small-scale coaxial rotor test stand designed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute(KARI) was used. With the same test stand, performance of the coaxial configuration had been studied before the experimental study on blade deformation, in order to find the relation between performance and blade deformation of the rotor system. Results of the performance test and the deformation study are presented in this article.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.699-708
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• 2021

In this paper, the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics that vary depending on the rotation axial distance between the upper and lower rotor, which is one of the design parameters of the coaxial rotor, is analyzed in the hovering condition using the computational fluid dynamics. Aerodynamic analysis using the Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equation and the aeroacoustic analysis using the Ffowcs Williams ans Hawkings equation is performed and the results were compared. The upper and lower rotor of the coaxial rotor have different phase angle which changes periodically by rotation and have unsteady characteristics. As the distance between the upper and lower rotors increased, the aerodynamic efficiency of the thrust and the torque was increased as the flow interaction decreased. In the aeroacoustic viewpoint, the noise characteristics radiated in the direction of the rotational plane showed little effect by axis spacing. In the vertical downward direction of the axis increased, the SPL maintains its size as the frequency increases, which affects the increase in the OASPL. As the axial distance of the coaxial rotor increased, the noise characteristics of a coaxial rotor were similar with the single rotor and the SPL decreased significantly.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1275-1284
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• 2018

The coaxial magnetic gear with the flux concentrating structure is known that it has the torque performance advantage over the coaxial magnetic gear having surface mounted permanent magnet, thanks to the flux focusing effect. But, if the solid cores are used in the modulating pieces and rotor cores to consider the mechanical reliability and cost reduction, the operating torque of the flux concentrating coaxial magnetic gear can be significantly diminished because the iron losses at the solid cores affect the actual transmitted torque. Furthermore, the modulating pieces and rotor cores have different characteristics of the iron losses from one another, because the space harmonic components of the magnetic flux density, which cause the iron losses, are different. Thus, in this paper, we focused on the analysis of the characteristics of the space harmonic components of the magnetic flux density and resultant eddy current losses in the surface mounted PM and flux concentrating coaxial magnetic gears, when these coaxial magnetic gears have the solid cores at the modulating pieces and rotor cores. The characteristics of pull-out torque (static torque), operating torque (dynamic torque), and efficiency are also researched, and compared by the 3D finite element analysis (FEA) and experiment.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.167-174
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• 2010

The design, dynamics, and control allocation of tri-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are introduced in this paper. A trirotor UAV has three rotor axes that are equidistant from its center of gravity. Two designs of tri-rotor UAV are introduced in this paper. The single tri-rotor UAV has a servo-motor that is installed on one of the three rotors, which enables rapid control of its motion and its various attitude changes-unlike a quad-rotor UAV that depends only on the angular velocities of four rotors for control. The other design is called 'coaxial tri-rotor UAV,' which has two rotors installed on each rotor axis. Since the tri-rotor type of UAV has the yawing problem induced from an unpaired rotor's reaction torque, it is necessary to derive accurate dynamic and design control logic for both single and coaxial tri-rotors. For that reason, a control strategy is proposed for each type of tri-rotor, and nonlinear simulations of the altitude, Euler angle, and angular velocity responses are conducted by using a classical proportional-integral-derivative controller. Simulation results show that the proposed control strategies are appropriate for the control of single and coaxial tri-rotor UAVs.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-107
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• 2007

A coaxial rotor flying robot is developed for surveying and reconnoitering various circumstances under calamity environment. The robot has two contrarotating rotors on a common axis, an embedded microcontroller, an IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit), an IR sensor for height control, a micro camera for surveillance, ultrasonic position sensors and wireless communication devices. A bell-bar mounted on the top of the upper rotor hub increases stability and improves flight performance. In this paper, we present a dynamic model of a coaxial rotor flying robot and design an embedded controller far the robot, and implement them to control the developed flying robot. Experimental results show that the proposed controller is valid for autonomous hovering and position control.