MODULE CODE: 3223

ROTORCRAFT AEROMECHANICS

Lecture by:
Wing Commander Niroshan Kiriwella
MSc. Tech (SPPU–Ind), PG Dip Mgt (KDU), BSc. Aero Eng (KDU), MRAeS (UK), AMIE (SL), A.Eng (ECSL), AMCMET (SL), ptsc (Ind)
 LESSON 07

Main Rotor Design

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
 Most important and complex component of a helicopter
 The design balances many contradictory goals and constraints
 Examples: Minimizing cost, maximizing performance, and keeping
vibration and noise below thresholds.

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Size
 Size has a widespread impact on design, affecting almost all
criteria
 Size may be constrained so that it can fit in certain spaces
 Example: Military helicopters may be required to fit in an elevator on
an aircraft carrier. This constraint may be avoided by designing
folding rotor, but with increased complexity and cost.
 Downwash can constrain main rotor size
 When carrying the same weight, smaller rotors have larger
downwash. This can prevent landing in certain areas due to risk of
damaging structures and vegetation.
 Larger main rotors are more efficient than smaller ones

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Sizes

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Size…cont
 Larger rotors can lift more weight per unit power/fuel
 Rotors create thrust by throwing air downward,
producing downwash.
 This thrust equals the product of the mass and acceleration of the
downwash
 To lift the same weight, a smaller rotor must impart more
acceleration to a smaller volume (mass) of air
 This generates larger downwash velocities, albeit in a smaller
area
ENERGY IMPARTED TO AIR ∝ mv2

 A larger rotor, accelerating a larger volume of air by a smaller

amount, is more efficient
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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Number of Rotor Blades
 Helicopter cost and vibration are particularly sensitive to the
number of main rotor blades
 Performance is less influenced by blade count
 There are performance pros/cons that roughly balance out
 Example: Fewer blades require large chord lengths to produce the
same thrust, which provides L/D benefits via Reynolds effects.
However, such blades have smaller aspect ratio and hence suffer
larger tip losses.
 Vibration is a potent enemy of helicopters
 Vibration causes real fatigue that can limit flight times
 Ages all the parts on a helicopter, shrinking their lifetime and
increasing maintenance costs
 Excess vibration can cause a lethal crash by breaking critical
components in flight
 Designers must carefully limit the vibration 7
 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Number of Rotor Blades

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Number of Rotor Blades…cont
 The largest source of vibration at the frequency - Nf
 where N is the number of blades and f is the frequency of the main
rotor (its rotational speed)
 At similar rotor speed, a 4-bladed rotor’s vibration is twice the
frequency of a 2-bladed rotor
 Effects of vibration vary with amplitude and frequency
 Larger blade counts are less desirable structurally
 Chord length is inversely proportional to the blade count
 With twice as many blades, the chord length of each will be half.
Each blade will be required to carry half as much load, but the
structural stiffness will be less than half (all else equal). This is
because the stiffness varies with the square of the chord. Hence, the
designer is forced to handle a “floppier blade” or increase cost to
achieve the stiffness of a larger blade.
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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Speed
 Larger rotors on traditional helicopters are designed to
operate in a small range of speeds (Ex: 290 to 310 RPM)
 Rotor speed mostly affects the noise and weight of the rotor
and drive system
 Rotor noise is difficult to predict
 Roughly, 5th power of the rotor tip speed! Tip speeds above 750 ft/s
are generally too loud for practical aircraft
 Faster rotor blades experience more dynamic pressure and
hence need less chord to produce the same lift
 This means faster rotors facilitate smaller blades
 Larger rotor speeds also reduce torque (per unit power),
facilitating cheaper, lighter drive systems

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Speed…cont
 Rotor speed is constrained on the high and low sides by
several other factors
 In forward flight, the advancing blade tip speed (relative to the air)
is the hover tip speed plus the forward flight speed
 If this nears the speed of sound, regions of air around the blade will
compress, shock waves will develop, and aerodynamic loads
become unmanageable
 A strong pitch-down moment called Mach tuck can twist the
advancing blade nose down
 Then, the hover tip speed needs to be at least double the
maximum desired forward speed
 Otherwise, at max forward speed the retreating blade will
stall, lacking enough velocity relative to the air
 This is referred to as retreating blade stall or RBS
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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Speed…cont
 Retreating blade stall or RBS

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Main Rotor Speed…cont
 The compressibility effect requires;
 a lower rotor speed at higher aircraft speed,
 while retreating blade stall requires higher rotor speed at higher
aircraft speed
 There’s a limit, around 200kts, where no rotor speed can
satisfy both criteria
 This is shown by the intersecting lines in the diagram below
(It’s not practical to fly a traditional helicopter beyond this speed)

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design
 Performance and cost are sensitive to blade shape
 A blade designer must choose airfoil shapes along the length of the
blade along with their size (chord length) and orientation (twist)

 Airfoils are selected based on;

 Structural concerns
 Manufacturability
 acoustic properties
 lift/drag properties
 Typically CFD and wind tunnel tests will be performed to
determine lift and drag coefficients for the airfoils as a
function of angle of attack
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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 Once the airfoil(s) are chosen, the 3-D blade shape can take
form
 This shape is governed by;
 Chord length
 Twist and
 Airfoil distribution along the blade
 If multiple airfoils will be used, designers must choose which
airfoils will be used where on the blade
 Example: Airfoil A will be used from the tip to 18’, airfoil B will be
used from 16’ down to 12’, …. This is what is meant by airfoil
distribution
 Some method of interpolating airfoil shapes will be used to
transition between airfoils
 Ex: from 16’ to 18’
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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 The airfoil shape is non-dimensional, but real blades have a
specific size, or chord length, at each location along their
length
 Example: the airfoil at 10’ radius will have a 1.1’ chord
 This chord distribution or taper must be selected to provide
enough thrust at the design rotor speed
 Lift is proportional to chord length, so the chord will need to
be;
 Large enough to lift the weight of the helicopter
 Provide thrust for acceleration and overcoming drag at high forward
speed
 If the chord is too large there will be a performance penalty
 A larger chord airfoil needs to operate at a smaller angle of
attack, which results in excess drag (operating at a smaller
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L/D)
 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 Simply making a rectangular blade with the same chord length
everywhere is simple and cheap to manufacture but comes
with a performance cost
 Optimal efficiency requires a uniform induced velocity over
the entire rotor, which calls for a tapered blade with a very
large chord inboard, shrinking towards the tip
 Most designs are neither square nor performance-optimal;
tradeoffs result in something in between
 Blades are also twisted

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 Ideal airfoils, chord and twist are more important on the outer
portion of a blade
 Inboard, the designer can violate aerodynamic idealities more
for cost, structural or other practical benefit
 Outer portion of the blade is more critical for performance
 Example: Assuming thrust is uniformly distributed over the main
rotor area, the section of the blade from 19’ to 20’ covers an area
of π (202−192)≈122.5 square ft and hence accounts for about 9% of
the thrust of a 21’ blade, while the portion of the blade from 2’ to 3’
covers an area of just π (32−22)≈15.7 square ft and provides only 1%
of the thrust
 Likewise, the outer portion of the blade creates more torque
per unit length that must be overcome by the engine

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 Blade tip design is a humbling activity for the best engineers
 Even in hover, blade tips experience complex, 3D airflow
 The aerodynamic forces must drop to zero at the tip, causing
vortices to form and spanwise flow along the blade
 Many designs just use a square blade tip and avoid
complicated tip analysis
 However, the tip is critical because, per unit length;
 Covers the most rotor area
 Has the strongest effect on vortex formation
 Is the most susceptible to compressibility, and
 Has the largest impact on rotor noise and elastic blade bending
 Challenging as it may be, alternate tip shapes have been
designed
 Examples: Sikorsky’s Black Hawk and Westland’s AW101 20
 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 Blade tip design is a humbling activity for the best engineers
 Even in hover, blade tips experience complex, 3D airflow
 The aerodynamic forces must drop to zero at the tip, causing
vortices to form and spanwise flow along the blade
 Many designs just use a square blade tip and avoid
complicated tip analysis
 However, the tip is critical because, per unit length;
 Covers the most rotor area
 Has the strongest effect on vortex formation
 Is the most susceptible to compressibility, and
 Has the largest impact on rotor noise and elastic blade bending
 Challenging as it may be, alternate tip shapes have been
designed
 Examples: Sikorsky’s Black Hawk and Westland’s AW101 21
 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont
 The primary feature provided by nonstandard tips is
compressibility mitigation
 By sweeping a blade tip (or the leading edge thereof) aft, the speed
of air normal to the leading edge may be reduced – the speed of air
relative to a blade section with rotational speed Ω at a distance r
from the hub is Ωr
 However, if the leading edge is swept at an angle δ, the speed
normal to the leading edge is reduced to Ωr cosδ
 Swept blades may also exhibit much more elastic twist
 Forces pushing up on an aft-swept tip tend to twist the blade
nose down and vice versa
 This can be leveraged for improved performance and even
longitudinal stability

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Blade Shape and Airfoil Design…cont

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 MAIN ROTOR DESIGN
Rotor Hub Design
 Rotor hub design may be overlooked, but experts know the
hub type is critical for;
 Cost/maintainability
 Safety and
 Flying qualities
 Unlike most components, hub designs vary greatly between
helicopters, even at the fundamental level
 Example: Some designs like teetering rotors work well for two
bladed helicopters but are inapplicable for rotors with more than
two blades
 Hubs do have common goals;
 Keeping the blades attached to the shaft while allowing them to
feather, flap and sometimes lead/lag

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 REVISION
 We have learnt – Main Rotor Design
 Main rotor size
 Number of blades
 Main rotor speed
 Blade shape and airfoil design
 Rotor hub design

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 IN CLASS ASSIGNMENT
 Discuss helicopter blade design and limitations
 Find examples where helicopter blade design has
optimized helicopter performance and list the
aerodynamic advantages gained.

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