Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2019), xxx(xx): xxx–xxx

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
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FULL LENGTH ARTICLE

Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor

by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation
Jinghui DENG, Feng FAN *, Ping’an LIU, Shuilin HUANG, Yongfeng Lin

National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Rotorcraft Aeromechanics, China Helicopter Research and
Development Institute, Jingdezhen 333001, China

Received 6 November 2017; revised 17 April 2018; accepted 3 May 2018

KEYWORDS Abstract Focusing on aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor of a high-speed helicopter
Aerodynamic characteristics; in hover and forward flight, a wind tunnel test is conducted in the 8 m
6 m low-speed straight-
High-speed helicopter; flow wind tunnel of China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center. In the experiment,
Lateral lift offset; a 4 m diameter composite model rigid coaxial rotor is designed and manufactured, and first-
Rigid coaxial rotor; order flapping frequency ratio of the blade is 1.796 to ensure sufficient stiffness at the blade root.
Wind tunnel test Rotor aerodynamic performance is measured under hovering and high advance ratio conditions.
Also, the numerical method is used to calculate aerodynamic characteristics in typical states of
the rigid coaxial rotor for analysis purpose. The rotor lift-drag ratio and lateral lift offset in the
experiment are emphatically analyzed for the rigid coaxial rotor. The results indicate that in for-
ward flight condition, the rotor lift-drag ratio first increases and then decreases with the increment
of advance ratio and lift offset. When advance ratio remains constant, with the increment of lift off-
set, the lift-drag ratio of rigid coaxial rotor first increases and then decreases.
Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
The compound helicopter with rigid coaxial rotor is one of
main configurations in the development of high-speed heli-
copters, and as the most important feature of the helicopter,
the Advanced Blade Concept (ABC) rotor1 is adopted. The
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ff18709598@avic.com (F. FAN).
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
advancing side of the rotor produces most of lift, while less
for the retreating side of the rotor. Dynamic pressure is larger
for the advancing side in forward flight, and the limitation of
dynamic stall for the retreating side can be overcome. In this
way, the maximum forward speed of helicopter will be
increased. This type of rotor is characterized by its compact-
sized, good performance of aerodynamic characteristics,
maneuverability and controllability, and performs well under
both hovering and forward flight conditions. However, com-
pared to a conventional single rotor, the coaxial rotor config-
uration suffers severe vortex-vortex interaction and blade-
vortex interaction due to the small separation between upper
and lower rotor. Furthermore, lift offset is the unique aerody-
namic phenomenon of rigid coaxial rotor.2 In view of this,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
1000-9361 Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: DENG J et al. Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation, Chin J Aeronaut
(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
2 J. DENG et al.

comprehensive understanding of complex aerodynamic char- eral lift offset and advance ratio in forward flight are
acteristics for this rotor configuration is of great significance. investigated.
Harrington3 conducted an aerodynamic experiment about
conventional coaxial rotor in hovering state in early years. 2. Test and numerical method
He compared the lift, torque and hovering efficiency between
coaxial and single rotors. The Sikorsky Aircraft Corpora- 2.1. Wind tunnel and model rotor description
tion4–6 developed the first helicopter with rigid coaxial rotor
named XH-59A in the 1970s, and carried out wind tunnel tests
The experiment is conducted in an 8 m
6 m low-speed
to study the properties such as overall performance of rotor,
straight-flow wind tunnel at Chinese Aerodynamic Research
hub drag and noise characteristics. McAlister et al.7 conducted
and Development Center, and the maximum wind speed of
experimental study of a model coaxial rotor in NASA Ames
the test section is 70 m/s. A new rigid coaxial rotor test-
Research Center about the influence of spacing parameter on
stand is built for the experiment, rotational shaft of the upper
coaxial rotor aerodynamic performance. Lim et al.8 studied
rotor is wrapped in the lower one, and the two rotors rotate
the relationship of aerodynamic performance between full size
synchronously in opposite direction through gear system. Con-
and scaled coaxial rotor model. Coleman summarized the early
ventional control system is used for lower rotor, while for
research results about aerodynamic performance of conven-
upper rotor, mast components are wrapped in the hub of
tional coaxial rotor.9 In addition to experiment, numerical cal-
upper rotor to mount a supporting platform for control sys-
culation is also an important way to research the aerodynamic
tem. Control mechanisms like electric actuator, swashplate,
performance. Wayne10 used the software CAMARD to inves-
pitch link and so on are installed within the hub of upper rotor,
tigate the influence of lift offset on rotor aerodynamic perfor-
so the upper rotor can be controlled within the hub. This con-
mance, and the results indicated that lift offset could reduce
struction can reduce the size of hubs, thus reducing the drag of
induced power consumption in high-speed forward flight.
hubs. In addition, shaft angle variation of test-stand is con-
Bagai11 investigated the effect of design parameters such as
trolled through hydraulic actuator. Two six-component bal-
chord length, twist angle, and airfoil distribution on the aero-
ances are used to measure aerodynamic force of upper and
dynamic performance for the X2TM technology demonstrator
lower rotor, respectively. Fig. 1 gives the picture of rigid coax-
main rotor blade. Brown and Kim12 established an analytical
ial rotor test-stand in the wind tunnel.
method for the flowfield of the coaxial rotor configuration
The rigid coaxial rotor model is of 4 m diameter and built
based on viscous vortex transport model, and carried out the
by composite material. The first-order flap frequency ratio is
research about rotor aerodynamics and noise. In recent years,
1.796 to ensure sufficient rigidity at the root of blade. The
CFD methods derived from Navier-Stokes equations have
hub system is hingeless, and flanges are used to connect blades
been widely used in the studies of aerodynamic interactions
to it. The main parameters are shown in Table 1, R is the rotor
of coaxial rotor. CFD methods can accurately describe the
radius.
complex shape of rotor blade. Based on sliding and overset
grid, Lakshminarayan et al.13 conducted a research on aerody-
2.2. Definition of main variable symbols
namic interference characteristics for conventional coaxial
rotor in hovering state and described the unsteady mechanism
of vortex-vortex interaction as well as blade-vortex interaction. The definitions of main variable symbols are shown in Table 2.
Ye and Xu14 used self-adaptive grid technique to study the The subscripts UR and LR represent upper rotor and lower
induced velocity field and spatial variation characteristics of rotor, respectively. h1sUR and h1sLR are positive if the rotor pitch
wake vortices of conventional coaxial rotor. In order to moment is nose-down, and h1cUR and h1cLR are positive if the
address the problem of low computational efficiency which rotor roll moment is toward the advancing side. The lateral lift
comes from the inherent property of moving overset grid offset is subject to upper rotor, and is positive if it is in the
method, Xu and Ye15 established a numerical method for advancing side.
coaxial rotor flowfield based on Euler equations to study the Thrust coefficient CT , power coefficient Qco and hovering
flow characteristics and overall aerodynamic performance for efficiency Mco are defined as follows:
coaxial-rotor helicopter in hover.
Although such high-resolution numerical analysis methods
as CFD develop fast, it is still a challenge to calculate the aero-
dynamic performance of rigid coaxial rotor accurately. Exper-
iment is still an important way to investigate the aerodynamics
of this rigid coaxial rotor. Recently, Sikorsky conducts wind
tunnel tests for S-97 high-speed helicopter.16 However, there
are few published literatures of rigid coaxial rotor experiments
about aerodynamic interference in hover and lift offset in for-
ward flight. Reliable experimental data for numerical calcula-
tion models are also lacking. Given this, this paper conducts
a wind tunnel test research for rigid coaxial rotor aiming at
aerodynamic performance in hovering and forward flight state.
Moreover, numerical methods are also used to compute typical
states of rigid coaxial rotor flowfield. Aerodynamic interfer-
ence characteristics in hover are analyzed. Emphatically, the
variations of rotor lift-drag ratio with parameters such as lat- Fig. 1 Picture of rigid coaxial rotor test-stand in wind tunnel.

Please cite this article in press as: DENG J et al. Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation, Chin J Aeronaut
(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation 3

W ¼ ½q qu qv qw qET
Table 1 Main parameters of model rotor.
2 3
Variable Value qU
6 7
Rotor blade radius (m) 2 6 quU þ nx p 7
6 7
Fc ¼ 6 7
Number of blades 4
Coning angle (°) 3 6 qvU þ ny p 7
6 7
Upper/lower rotor distance (m) 0.3 4 qwU þ nz 5
p
Rotor solidity 0.2 qHU
Blade rootcut 0.3R
Rotational speed (r/min) 778 2 3
0
Rotation direction Counterclockwise (upper rotor) 6n s þn s þn s 7
Clockwise (lower rotor) 6 x xx y xy z xz 7
6 7
Fv ¼ 6
6 nx syx þ ny syy þ nz syz 7
7
6 7
4 nx szx þ ny szy þ nz szz 5
nx Hx þ ny Hy þ nz Hz
Table 2 Definition of main variable symbols. In the formulas, u; v; w and p denote the fluid velocity in
Symbol Definition three directions and pressure, respectively. E and H are inter-
h0:7 Rotor collective pitch, ðh0:7UR þ h0:7LR Þ=2
nal energy and enthalpy per unit mass. s is the viscous stress,
Dh0:7 and U the velocity of rotor blade relative to the fluid. [nx, ny,
Differential collective pitch, ðh0:7UR  h0:7LR Þ=2
h1s Longitudinal cyclic pitch, ðh1sUR þ h1sLR Þ=2 nz]T is the normal vector. H is the work of viscous stress and
Dh1s Differential longitudinal cyclic pitch, ðh1sUR  h1sLR Þ=2 heat conduction on fluid.
h1c Lateral cyclic pitch, ðh1cUR  h1cLR Þ=2 Roe scheme18 is used to solve the convection flux on the
Dh1c Differential lateral cyclic pitch, ðh1cUR þ h1cLR Þ=2 surface of the grid. To simulate the unsteady characteristics
of rotor flow, the dual time stepping method is used. At each
pseudo time step, implicit Lower–Upper Symmetric Gauss–
Seidel (LU-SGS) scheme19 is adopted. Moreover, Baldwin-

 Lomax (B-L) model is applied for turbulence closure.20
CT ¼ 2ðTUR þ TLR Þ= qX2 R2 pR2 ð1Þ Considering the unsteady characteristics in forward flight,

 moving overset grid method21 is used to simulate the rotor flow
Qco ¼ 2ðQUR þ QLR Þ= qX2 R2 pR2 R ð2Þ field in this paper. Fig. 2 shows the grid used in the calculation
(the number of blade for two pairs of rotors is 8), in which the
Mco ¼ 0:5C3=2
T =Qco ð3Þ rotor blade is C-O type grid, while the background is Cartesian
type grid. In order to capture the rotor wake and reduce the
where q is air density, X is rotational speed, R is rotor blade
computational complexity, the background grid is locally clus-
radius, TUR and TLR are the thrust of upper and lower rotor,
tered around the rotor.
respectively, and QUR and QLR represent upper and lower
In order to verify the numerical method, the numerical
rotor power, respectively.
example on the rigid coaxial rotor used in the present experi-
Rotor lift-drag ratio L/D and Lift Offset (LOS) are defined
ment is calculated. The hover performance of the rigid single
by
rotor and coaxial rotor is simulated. The trim strategy is that
L=D ¼ Fz =ðFx þ P=VÞ ð4Þ the upper rotor’s collective pitch is fixed, and lower rotor’s col-
lective pitch is changed to maintain the torque of lower rotor
LOS ¼ MxUR =ðFzUR RÞ ð5Þ equal to that of upper rotor. The total gird number is about
where Fz and Fx are rotor aerodynamic forces in wind axes, Fx 18000000. Fig. 3 shows the calculated rotor thrust and torque
is aerodynamic drag, and is positive if it is backward, Fz is per- coefficients (CT, CQ) with different collective pitch and com-
pendicular to direction of wind, and is positive if it is upward,
P is rotor power, and V represents wind speed, MxUR and FzUR
represent roll moment and vertical force, respectively.

2.3. Numerical calculation method and validation

To analyze the aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial

rotor in detail, a numerical calculation method is established
based on CFD technique. The rotor flowfield is simulated by
solving Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations,17 and
the governing equations are as follows:
Z I
@
WdV þ ðFc  Fv ÞdS ¼ 0 ð6Þ
@t V @V

The expressions of conservation variables W, convection

fluxes Fc , and viscous fluxes Fv are Fig. 2 Schematic of grid system.

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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
4 J. DENG et al.

Fig. 4 Thrust coefficient for upper and lower rotors in

experiment.

Fig. 3 Comparison of hover performance of rigid single and

coaxial rotor between calculated results and experiment. Fig. 5 Percentage of thrust for upper and lower rotors in
experiment.
pares the calculated results with the experimental data. It can
be seen from the figure that, for both single and coaxial rotor, angle of attack of lower rotor is decreased when it is in the
the calculated rotor thrust and torque coefficients agree well downwash of upper rotor, so the thrust generated by lower
with experimental data, which indicates that the established rotor is less than the upper one.
calculation method can be used reliably to analyze the aerody- Fig. 6 presents the hover performance curves for each rotor.
namic characteristics for rigid coaxial rotor. As can be seen from the figure, at the same thrust coefficient,
power consumption of lower rotor is larger than that of the
3. Analysis of aerodynamic interference characteristics in hover upper one, and the absolute value of torque difference also
increases with the increment of thrust coefficient. The percent-
In this section, experiments of collective pitch scanning and
torque trim for rigid coaxial rotor are carried out. Aerody-
namic force and moment of upper and lower rotors are mea-
sured and then compared with the single rotor case to
analyze the hovering performance and aerodynamic interfer-
ence characteristics.
In order to analyze the interactions between upper and
lower rotor, collective pitch scanning for the coaxial rotor is
conducted firstly. During this experiment, the same collective
pitch is applied to upper and lower rotors. Fig. 4 presents
the variation of thrust coefficient with collective pitch h when
the rotational speed is 778 r/min. It shows that the thrust of
upper rotor is larger than that of the lower one. Fig. 5 gives
percentage of thrust of each rotor against total thrust coeffi-
cient. It can be seen that percentage of thrust for upper rotor
decreases with the increment of collective pitch, while lower
rotor changes inversely. The thrust of upper rotor is always
Fig. 6 Performance curves for upper and lower rotors in
larger than that of the lower rotor. This is because the effective
experiment.

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Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation 5

age of torque for each rotor is given in Fig. 7, and CQ is the

total torque coefficient of the coaxial rotor system. It shows
that percentage of torque for upper rotor decreases slowly,
while increases for lower rotor, with the increase of total thrust
coefficient and tends to be a constant. The torque moment
reflects the power consumption of rotor. That is to say, the
absolute value of torque difference will increase, while its rela-
tive value will decrease, with the increment of thrust
coefficient.
In order to analyze the aerodynamic interference between
two rotors, CFD method is used to simulate the test case.
Fig. 8 presents the change of transient thrust coefficient of
upper and lower rotors with azimuthal angle / when the total
thrust coefficient is trimmed to 0.02. The trim strategy is giving
an initial value of the collective angle of upper rotor, adjusting Fig. 8 Thrust coefficients for upper and lower rotors in
the collective angle of lower rotor to keep the same torque, and calculation.
then changing the collective angle of upper rotor and the cor-
responding value of lower rotor until the total thrust coeffi-
cient is equal to the objective value. In the figure, eight
periodic changes in rotor thrust can be seen in one circle
because the blades of upper and lower rotors meet each other
at every 45°, while the thrust of single rotor remains
unchanged due to the quasi-steady flow condition in hover.
The bound vortices of blade will induce upwash on another
blade when the two blades rotate close to each other, leading
to the increase of thrust. The upwash turns into downwash
when the two blades rotate away from each other, so the thrust
decreases.
In the normal operation state of the rigid coaxial rotor, tor-
ques of coaxial rotor are trimmed to maintain the stability of
the helicopter flight. In this paper, the performance test of
rotors in hover is carried out in the condition of torque bal-
anced. During the test, the collective pitch of upper rotor is
taken as the baseline, and the torque balance is achieved by
adjusting differential collective pitches of two rotors. Fig. 9
shows both the variation of collective pitches and the thrust
coefficient share of the upper and lower rotors. As the induced
downwash of upper rotor impacts on lower rotor directly, the
collective pitch of lower rotor becomes greater. However, it
still produces less thrust. As the thrust increases, the difference
of collective pitches between two rotors is maintained at about
1.6°, while the torque of the upper and lower rotor is trimmed
to the same. In the total coefficient of thrust, the upper rotor

Fig. 9 Variation of both collective pitches and thrust coefficient

share of upper and lower rotors with total thrust in experiment.

accounts for about 53.5%, while the lower one accounts for
about 46.5%.
In order to compare the aerodynamic performance of the
rigid coaxial rotor and the conventional single one, the collec-
tive pitch scanning test of the isolated single rotor is also car-
ried out. Fig. 10 shows a comparison of the hover performance
among the upper and lower rotors, as well as the isolated single
rotor in hover. It can be seen from the figure, with the same
Fig. 7 Percentage of torque for upper and lower rotors in thrust coefficient and rotor solidity, the torque of the upper
experiment. rotor is greater than that of the single rotor, while the lower

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6 J. DENG et al.

Fig. 10 Performance comparison of coaxial rotor and single

rotor with the same solidity in experiment.

rotor requires greater torque than the upper one. Namely,

hover performance of the upper or lower rotor is worse than
that of the isolated rotor, while the upper rotor is better than
the lower one. The reason lies in the fact that the separation of
coaxial rotors is close, and hence there is strong aerodynamic
interference. Compared to single rotor, the inflow of coaxial
rotor increases much more, especially for the lower one. In
order to produce the same thrust as single rotor, greater collec-
tive pitches are needed for the coaxial rotor. As a conclusion,
the aerodynamic interference of coaxial rotor causes that the
hover performance of both upper and lower rotor is less than
that of isolated single rotor, and the influence on lower rotor is
even worse.
In order to explain the phenomenon further, Fig. 11 gives a
comparison of the induced velocity field of the coaxial rotor
and single rotor obtained by CFD simulation. The thrust coef-
ficient of single rotor is half of the rigid coaxial rotor. It can be Fig. 11 Induced velocity field comparison of coaxial rotor and
seen from the figure that the wake contraction rate of the coax- single rotor in calculation.
ial rotor is much less than that of the single rotor.
Fig. 12 gives a comparison of the Figure of Merit (FM)
between the rigid coaxial rotor and single rotor, in which the
symbol CT and r indicate the rotor thrust coefficients and
rotor solidity, respectively. As can be seen from the figure, with
the same blade load, FM of the rigid coaxial rotor model is
about 10.5% higher than that of the isolated single rotor.
However, due to the presence of the interference, the upper
and lower rotors require more power than the single rotor
(see Fig. 6), which weakens the advantage of coaxial configu-
ration on FM. This phenomenon can also be explained as lar-
ger equivalent rotor disk area of coaxial rotor when compared
with the single rotor under the condition of the same blade
loads.

4. Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor in forward

flight
In forward flight, the lift of rigid coaxial rotor is mainly pro-
vided by blades at the advancing side, accompanied by the
unique lift offset phenomenon. In high-speed flight, the rota-
tional speed of rigid coaxial rotor will be usually reduced.
The reduction of rotational speed has an important effect on
the aerodynamic performance of rigid coaxial rotor. This
paper carried out the wind tunnel test of rigid coaxial rotor
Fig. 12 Comparison of FM between single rotor and coaxial
rotor.
in forward flight with trim of control settings. The rotor lift-
drag ratio and lateral lift offset are given to evaluate the rotor
performance. Also, the influence of parameters such as
advance ratio on the forward flight performance is analyzed.
Rigid coaxial rotor has six control settings. During wind
tunnel test, the rotor differential collective pitches and differ-

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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation 7

ential longitudinal cyclic pitches are set to zero. Collective

pitches are trimmed to a specified vertical force coefficient,
while the lateral and longitudinal cyclic pitches are adjusted
to control the pitching and rolling moments. Meanwhile, dif-
ferential lateral cyclic pitches are used to control the lateral lift
offset. Due to the speed limit of the wind tunnel, the method of
reducing the rotor rotational speed is used to improve the
rotor advance ratio. The test condition is shown in Table 3.

4.1. Influence of lateral lift offset on aerodynamic performance

The LOS is an important parameter of the rigid coaxial rotor,

and different LOS has a significant effect on the aerodynamic Fig. 13 Influence of LOS on experimental L/D of coaxial rigid
performance of the rotor. Fig. 13 presents the influence of the rotor.
LOS on L/D performance at different advance ratios. It can be
seen from the figure that, at different advance ratios l, the L/D
increases first and then decreases with the increment of LOS.
Each advance ratio has an optimal LOS, making the L/D reach
a maximum value. The test results show that the best L/D per-
formance is obtained at advance ratio of 0.4.
In order to analyze the reason, the variation of the rotor
forward flight drag and the power equivalent drag with differ-
ent LOS is given in Fig. 14. From the figure, as the LOS
increases, the forward flight drag also increases, while the
power equivalent drag decreases rapidly and then increases
slowly, which makes the total equivalent drag (the sum of for-
ward flight drag and power equivalent drag) exhibit a tendency
of decreasing first and increasing later.
To understand the influence of LOS on the aerodynamic
characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor, the auxiliary analysis is Fig. 14 Variation of drag components of coaxial rigid rotor with
conducted by using CAMARD II software. The rotor disk lift different LOS in experiment (l = 0.4).
coefficient CL distributions of the rigid coaxial rotor model in
different LOS are calculated, as shown in Fig. 15. It can be
seen from the figure, when the LOS is not limited (i.e. differen-
rotor disk. An appropriate lift offset according to the flight
tial lateral cyclic pitch equals 0), the lift loading mainly lies on
condition can significantly improve the aerodynamic perfor-
the advancing side, and concentrates in the vicinity of 90° azi-
mance of rigid coaxial rotor.
muth. After altering LOS through control, the lift begins to
Fig. 16 shows the experimental results of the variation of
move toward the longitudinal center. When the lift offset
the lateral lift offset of rigid coaxial rotor with differential lat-
equals 20%, the lift is still mainly loaded on the advancing
eral cyclic pitches. As can be seen from the figure, for a given
side, but no longer concentrated in the vicinity of 90° azimuth,
advance ratio, the increment of the lateral lift offset of rotor
while there are two high lift areas in the first and second quad-
shows approximately a linear decreasing trend with the
rants. When the lift offset is equivalent to 10%, the lift is con-
increase of differential lateral cyclic pitch. In addition, as the
centrated near the azimuth of 0° and 180°, while there is an
advance ratio increases, the slope gradually decreases. This
obvious negative lift zone in the blade tip region of the 90° azi-
phenomenon implies that the increase of advance ratio makes
muth. It should be pointed out that the excessive lift offset can
the lift offset more difficult to be adjusted.
lead to a larger alternating torque load on the blade root,
which will have an adverse effect on the structural strength
4.2. Rotor performance at different advance ratios
and fatigue life of the blade.
Figs. 13 and 15 show that LOS can directly affect the rotor
forward flight performance and the lift distribution of the Fig. 17 presents the variation of the L/D of rigid coaxial rotor
against the advance ratio. It should be pointed out that the L/
D in the figure is the optimal value among the different lateral
lift offsets for each forward flight condition. The L/D shows a
Table 3 Test status of forward flight. trend of increasing first and decreasing later. Under the present
Variable Value test condition, the maximum L/D of the rigid coaxial rotor
Rotational speed (r/min) 397
model can reach 8.3 at the advance ratio of 0.4.
Range of wind speed (m/s) 16.6–66.5 Fig. 18 shows the variation of trimming control settings
Range of advance ratio 0.2–0.8 with different advance ratios. It can be seen from the figure
Rotor shaft angle (°) 0 that with the increment of the advance ratio, the collective
Vertical force coefficient 0.03834 pitch required for trimming is decreased. However, this
Range of lift offset (%) 0–40 decrease is not obvious when the advance ratio is greater than
0.6, which reflects the same change tendency of rotor power

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8 J. DENG et al.

Fig. 15 Lift distribution on upper rotor with different LOS in calculation.

Fig. 16 Variation of LOS with change of differential lateral Fig. 18 Variation of control settings with different advance
cyclic pitch in experiment. ratios in experiment.

consumption. With the increment of advance ratio, the lateral

cyclic pitches almost keep steady in a very small value (1°).
This is because that the rotor lift offset makes the rolling
moment be balanced in forward flight. The rotor longitudinal
cyclic pitch firstly decreases and then increases, while the over-
all change is small, basically maintained at about 6°.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, wind tunnel test and numerical calculation are

carried out to study the aerodynamic characteristics of a rigid
coaxial rotor for high-speed helicopter. The rotor aerodynamic
performance such as lift, drag and power is measured in hover
Fig. 17 Variation of L/D with different advance ratios in and high-advance-ratio forward flight conditions. The numer-
experiment. ical method is used to calculate aerodynamic characteristics in

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(2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2018.12.026
Aerodynamic characteristics of rigid coaxial rotor by wind tunnel test and numerical calculation
typical states of rigid coaxial rotor. Through the analysis of the
experimental data and the numerical results, the following con-
clusions can be drawn:
(1) Aerodynamic interference of rigid coaxial rotor between
the upper and lower rotors is significant in hover. The
upper rotor shows superior hover performance than
the lower one, while it is not better than isolated single
rotor with the same solidity. And the figure of merit of
coaxial rotor is greater than that of the corresponding
single rotor.
(2) The rotor L/D shows a trend of increasing first and
decreasing later with the increase of advance ratio.
Under current test condition, the maximum L/D of the
rigid coaxial rotor model can reach 8.3 at the advance
ratio of 0.4.
(3) Lift offset has an important influence on forward flight
efficiency of rigid coaxial rotor. With the same advance
ratio, L/D of rigid coaxial rotor increases first and then
decreases, and there is an optimal lift offset which can
make the L/D reach a locally maximum value.
(4) With the increase of advance ratio, the collective pitch
required for the balance of the rigid coaxial rotor
decreases, and the lateral cyclic pitch maintains at a very
small value, keeping constant as the forward speed
changes.
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