• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.439-446
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• 2016

The characteristics of bearingless main rotor of helicopter are investigated through non-rotating tests and rotating tests. The stiffness and natural frequencies of rotor blades, flexbeam, and torque tube which are core components of baearingless rotor are measured to obtain input material properties for rotor analysis. The functional test on ground for assembly of one hub with damper, snubber, and no blade is carried out to check interfaces between components, kinematics of components, and pitch motion ranges under applied loads including centrifugal load. The 4-bladed bearingless rotor with 5.82m of rotor radius is tested on the whirl tower with rotation plane of 9.65m height. The thrust and power are measured to obtain hover performance and the frequencies and dampings of the rotor are obtained by excitation of cyclic pitch by hydraulic actuators.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.881-887
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• 2015

The stiffness and natural frequencies for blades, flexbeam, and torque tube of bearingless rotor system are measured to determine the material input properties such as mass distributions and stiffness distribution for the rotor dynamics and load analysis. The flap stiffness, lag stiffness, and torsional stiffness are calculated by measuring section strain or twist angle, gages position, and applied loads through bending and twist tests. The modal tests are undertaken to find out the natural frequencies for flap, lag, torsion modes in non-rotating conditions. The stiffness values and mass properties are tuned and updated to match prediction frequencies to the measured frequencies. The rotorcraft comprehensive code(CAMRAD II) is used to analyze the natural frequencies of the specimens. The analysis results with the updated material properties agree well with the measured frequencies. The updated properties will be used to analyze the rotor stability, dynamic characteristics and loads for the rotor rotation test in a whirl tower.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.04a
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• pp.347-352
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• 2013

Seoul National University Flap (SNUF) blade is a small-scaled rotor blade incorporating a small trailing-edge flap control surface driven by piezoelectric actuators at higher harmonics for vibration attenuation. Initially, the blade was designed using two-dimensional cross-section analysis and a geometrically exact one-dimensional beam analysis, and material configuration was finalized. Flap deflection angle of ${\pm}45^{\circ}$ was established as the criterion for better vibration reduction performance based on an earlier simulation. Flap linkage mechanism design is carried out and static bench tests are conducted to verify the flap actuation mechanism performance. Different versions of test beds are developed and tested with the flap and chosen APA 200M piezoelectric actuators. Through significant improvements, a maximum deflection of ${\pm}3.7^{\circ}$ was achieved. High frequency experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance and transfer function of the test bed is determined experimentally. As the static tests are almost completed, rotor power required for testing the blade in whirl tower (centrifugal environment) is calculated and further preparations are under way.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.93-114
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• 2011

The current status of Canadian research on rotor-based actively controlled technologies for helicopters is reviewed in this paper. First, worldwide research in this field is overviewed to put Canadian research into context. Then, the unique hybrid control concept of Carleton University is described, along with its key element, the "stiffness control" concept. Next, the smart hybrid active rotor control system (SHARCS) projected's history and organization is presented, which aims to demonstrate the hybrid control concept in a wind tunnel test campaign. To support the activities of SHARCS, unique computational tools, novel experimental facilities and new know-how had to be developed in Canada, among them the state-of-the-art Carleton Whirl Tower facility or the ability to design and manufacture aeroelastically scaled helicopter rotors for wind tunnel testing. In the second half of the paper, details are provided on the current status of development on the three subsystems of SHARCS, i.e. that of the actively controlled tip, the actively controlled flap and the unique stiffness-control device, the active pitch link.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.12
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• pp.1162-1169
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• 2010

The dynamic balancing of a rotor system is needed to alleviate the imbalances originating from various sources encountered during blade manufacturing processes and environmental factors. This work aims at developing a comprehensive analysis system which consists of cumulative module of test D/B and selection of optimal control parameters. This system can be used for the dynamic balancing of helicopter rotors based on tracking results from the whirl tower test. For simplicity of the analysis, a linear relation is assumed between the balancing input parameters and the blade track responses leading to influence coefficients and thereby the rotor system identification is made. In addition, the balancing parameters of the individual blades are sought using the genetic algorithm and the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in comparison with the test results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.691-698
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• 2014

This paper describes the manufacturing processes for a flexbeam and torque tube made of composite materials, along with the procedures for testing their basic properties. A flexbeam and torque tube can be considered to be key structural components of a bearingless rotor hub system. A hinge offset effect can be realized by a large elastic deformation and twist of the flexbeam, and the blade pitch control forces are transferred by the rotation of the torque tube. The basic property tests included bending and twist tests to determine the flap stiffness, lag stiffness, and torsion stiffness of the flexbeam, torque tube, and blade, and these tests were performed prior to starting the whirl tower test. In addition, the estimated results were compared with experimental data, and the calculations were found to be a good match for the analysis results and had a similar tendency. Through these results, we could confirm that a flexbeam and torque tube made of composite materials satisfied the structural stiffness requirements.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.645-653
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• 2013

Seoul National University flap(SNUF) blade is a small-scale rotor blade incorporating a small trailing-edge flap control surface driven by piezoelectric actuators at higher harmonics for vibration attenuation. Initially, the blade was designed using two-dimensional cross-section analysis and geometrically exact one-dimensional beam analysis, and its material configuration was finalized. A flap-deflection angle of ${\pm}4^{\circ}$ was established as the criterion for enhanced vibration reduction based on an earlier simulation. The flap-linkage mechanism was designed and static bench tests were conducted for verifying the performance of the flap-actuation mechanism. Different versions of test beds were developed and tested with the designed flap and the selected APA 200M piezoelectric actuators. Through significant improvements, a maximum deflection of ${\pm}3.7^{\circ}$ was achieved. High-frequency experiments were conducted for evaluating the performance, and the transfer function of the test bed was determined experimentally. With the static tests almost complete, the rotor power required for testing the blade in a whirl tower (centrifugal environment) was calculated, and further preparations are underway.