Full Text 01

DEGREE PROJECT IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING,
SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2020
Study and Design of an Axial

Fan
Safran Engineering Services / Airbus Helicopters
ALEXIS DORANGE
KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Study and Design of an Axial
Fan
Safran Engineering Services / Airbus Helicopters
Alexis Dorange
Master’s Degree Project
Master in Aerospace Engineering
Academic supervisor and examiner:

Evelyn Otero Sola
Company supervisor:
Jean-Christophe Coquillat
KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering Department
SE-100 44, Stockholm, Sweden
i
Abstract
The cooling system is a crucial part for helicopter operations. Without

it, hovering flight could not be operated. The cooling system for the main
gearbox of a helicopter is composed of radiators and a fan. A fan is an
aerodynamic body and as such it can be improved in terms of aerodynamic
efficiency. Therefore di↵erent parameters need to be taken into account when
designing a new axial fan to have good aerodynamic performance. Simula-
tions have been carried out to investigate the e↵ects of these parameters and
come up with an optimal design based on the study requirements. The fan
has to enable the cooling system to evacuate an amount of thermal power so
that the helicopter can take o↵ with high outside temperatures. This optimal
design has shown an increase of the mass flow rate up to a factor of about
two for a given pressure loss compared to the original fan.
ii
Referat
Kylsystemet är en avgörande del för en helikopters drift. Utan den kan
helikoptern inte hovra. Kylsystemet för huvudväxeln hos en helikopter består
av radiatorer och en fläkt. En fläkt är en aerodynamisk kropp och kan därför
förbättras gällande aerodynamisk e↵ektivitet. Därför måste olika parame-
trar övervägas när man utformar en ny axialfläkt för att få god aerody-
namisk prestanda. Simuleringar genomfördes för att undersöka e↵ekterna
av dessa parametrar och komma fram till en optimal utformning baserad på
undersökningskraven. Denna optimala utformning har visat en ökning av
massflödet upp till en faktor på cirka två för en given tryckförlust jämfört
med den ursprungliga fläkten.
iii
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Mr. HONNORAT, project leader, for welcoming me in his
department for this project. I wish to thank particularly Mr. COQUILLAT
for mentoring me and guide me throughout this project with good advice, for
trusting me to do the best I could and achieve the target fixed. For helping
me when I needed help, whether in the professional or the personal domain.
I also thank Mr. SERR for helping me during the trainee, for his expertise in
the helicopter domain and for his joy everyday that makes everyone want to
work. I wish to thank both of them to have trusted me with this tremendous
project and motivated me when I had hard times. I also want to thank Mr.
BARRAUD for helping me with CAD software when I was struggling. I
want to thank Mr. DELECROIX, Mr. BLANCHARD and Mr. BIANCO
for my integration during the first month of my trainee period. I also want
to thank all the people in the department for welcoming me and integrate
me so quickly in the team. It has been a real pleasure to work with such a
devoted and competent team. Finally I wish to thank Ms. OTERO SOLA
for her advice, for the help provided and for her time and attention.
iv
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Background 3
2.1 Safran Engineering Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Airbus Helicopters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.2 H130 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Basics of aerodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 Methodology 9
3.1 CFD Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.1 Governing equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2 The Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.3 Turbulence model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.4 Wall Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.2 Mesh realization and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4 State Of The Art 18
5 Parameter investigation 22
5.1 Parameter definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2 Blade thickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.3 Blade angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.4 Number of blades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.5 Chord distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.6 Deflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.7 Twisting law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6 Fan Design Analysis 29

6.1 Low Power Consumption Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.2 High Mass Flow Rate Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
v
6.2.1 New shape of the hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.3 CFD Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7 Mechanical Sizing 33
7.1 Beam Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7.2 Finite Element Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
8 Conclusion 35
vi
List of Figures
2.1 Safran Engineering Services Logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.2 Eurocopter EC665 Tigre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Eurocopter logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4 Airbus Helicopters logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5 H160 first pre series exemplar and military model ”Guépard”. 6
2.6 H130 in flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.7 Airfoil nomenclature [1]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.8 Aerodynamic forces [2]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1 Domain of Computation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.2 Torque and axial force created on the fan by air. . . . . . . . . 11
3.3 An example of local impermeability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4 Skewness theory illustration with the ideal cell size (green),
and the current cell created by the meshing tool (purple). . . . 15
3.5 Example of a skewness correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.6 Section of the volume mesh when cutting horizontally the do-
main of computation at the middle of the fan. . . . . . . . . . 16
3.7 Continuity, velocity, energy, k and epsilon residuals. . . . . . . 16
4.1 Given CAD (left) and more accurate (right) CAD of the stan-
dard fan of the H130. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2 Complete fan (rotor, stator and grid) design with CAD (left)
and simplified for CFD computation (right). . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3 Target point, working curve of the original fan and aim of the
study (thick red line). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.4 Comparison between CFD computations and test on the orig-
inal fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.5 Comparison of turbulence models in Ansys on the original fan. 21
5.1 Airfoil of the original fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5.2 Thickness and curvature of an airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.3 Blade angle and twist t of a fan blade. . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
vii
5.4 Velocity triangle for the H130 fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.5 E↵ect of the blade thickness on the mass flow rate and the
power consumed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.6 E↵ect of the blade angle on the mass flow rate and the power
consumed by the fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.7 Evolution of mass flow rate (left) and efficiency (right) with
respect to the AoA at fixed pressure losses PL1 and PL2. . . . 26
5.8 E↵ect of the number of blades, namely 6 (T1C1 6B) and more
than 6 (T1C1 B1) on the mass flow rate and power consumed
by the fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.9 E↵ect of chord distribution on the mass flow rate and power
consumed by the fan. With T2 the original chord distribution
and T2 Chord the new chord distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.10 E↵ect of the deflection on the mass flow rate and power con-
sumed by the fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.11 E↵ect of twisting law on the mass flow rate and power con-
sumed by the fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6.1 Fan performance for a design based on low power consumption. 29

6.2 Fan performance for a design based on high mass flow rate. . . 30
6.3 Fan performance for a design based on high mass flow rate
with a new hub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.4 Corrected final design fan performance. The full lines being
CFD results and the dashed the test and the scaled final design. 31
7.1 Geometry simplification of a fan blade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
viii
Nomenclature
Abbreviations
AH Airbus Helicopters
AoA Angle of Attack
CAD Computer-Aided Design
CETIAT Centre Technique des Industries Aérauliques et Thermiques
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
MRF Multiple Reference Frame
N-S Navier-Stokes
RANS Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes
SES Safran Engineering Services
Symbols
↵ Angle of Attack
Blade Angle
⌧ Stress Tensor
D
Material derivative
Dt
r¨ Divergence Operator
⌘ Efficiency
g Body acceleration
q Heat flux
ix
u Flow velocity
B Partial Derivative
⇢ Density
CD Drag Coefficient
CL Lift Coefficient
D Drag
E Total Energy per unit of mass
L Lift
p Pressure
q Mass Flow Rate
Rey Turbulent Reynolds number
t Time
y` Dimensionless wall distance
x
Chapter 1
Introduction
Cooling systems are of various forms and for numerous applications : power
plants, engines, electric systems, etc. The objective of a cooling system is
to cool down an electronic or a mechanical device, such as an engine. A
cooling system comprises a closed loop of fluid which cools down the device
by exchanging heat with it, and a radiator which cools down the fluid with
air. Moreover this last exchange is accelerated by a fan.
On light helicopters, a cooling system regulates the temperature of hot
parts like the engine, the main gearbox and other components. The system
is composed by radiators and a fan. Due to the capacity of a helicopter to
fly in hover, without any relative wind, the cooling fan has to ensure a fresh
air flow through the radiators in all weather conditions otherwise the engine
risks to be overheated. The radiators are placed after the air intake at the
top cover of the machine. Following these radiators is the fan that blows
directly into the main transmission box.
As part of the continuous improvement of its product range, Airbus He-
licopters is seeking to improve the cooling system for the main gearbox and
engine on the H130 helicopter. The standard fan of the H130 is a commer-
cial fan built for trucks in the USA. It was sufficient at the beginning but
constant power improvements have led to an overheating when the outside
atmospheric temperature is too high, preventing the helicopter to even take
o↵. In this project , the axial cooling fan of the H130 is studied in order to
deal with the temperature limitations. However, the stator and the electronic
command of the fan will stay the same so the study is limited to the blades
and hub of the fan.
The approach used for the study is divided in several steps. First the
original fan is characterized to identify its current performance and the one
that needs to be fulfilled. Then a parameter study is carried out with Com-
putational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to assess the impact of these
1
parameters on the fan. Based on this analysis, an optimal design is defined
and then characterized through calculations.
The report starts with a general background on the companies involved,
the helicopter under consideration and the basics of aerodynamics. Then the
CFD based methodology is presented, followed by the parameter investiga-
tion, the design analysis, and some conclusions.
2
Chapter 2
Background
This chapter provides a brief history of the companies involved in this project,
namely Safran Engineering Services, where the project has been carried out,
as a subcontractor for Airbus Helicopters. The H130 helicopter considered in
this analysis is presented, followed by a brief background to aerodynamics.
2.1 Safran Engineering Services

Safran Engineering Services (SES) is part of the Safran group and a sub-
sidiary of Safran Electrical & Power. The company provides hi-tech engi-
neering services to the aerospace, energy and ground transport industries.
Figure 2.1: Safran Engineering Services Logo.
The French company is born from the merger of Teuchos and Labinal’s
Engineering and Technology division. Labinal Power Systems was a major
company in the aeronautic sector and was created in 1921 specialised in
design, production and implementation of electric wires in the aeronautic
sector.
Safran Engineering Services is selling its expertise in the following do-
mains: electrical systems, aerostructures, mechanical and software systems
and On-board electronic systems.
Today, SES employs more than 3,700 people on 19 sites in 10 countries,
working as a subcontractor for most of the major aerospace companies. SES’s
3
customers are mainly in the aeronautics sector, but they are also present
in the automotive, energy, rail and space industries in companies such as:
Airbus, Airbus Helicopters, Dassault Aviation, PSA... [3]
2.2 Airbus Helicopters

2.2.1 History
Airbus Helicopters is the world’s leading manufacturer of civil helicopters
and one of the leading manufacturers of military helicopters. It was cre-
ated under the name Eurocopter in 1992 from the merger of the helicopter
divisions of the French company Aérospatiale (SNIAS) and the German com-
pany Deutsche Aerospace (DASA). In 2000, the merger of Daimler Chrysler
Aerospace with the Spanish company Construcciones Aeronáuticas gave birth
to EADS. Eurocopter joined the group in 2014 with Airbus, Cassidian and
Astrium. Eurocopter becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS and car-
ries out a number of major co-operations such as the Tiger combat helicopter,
or broader co-operation with the Germans, French, Italians and Dutch for
the European NH90 transport helicopter program.
Figure 2.2: Eurocopter EC665 Tigre.
Figure 2.3: Eurocopter logo.
Since January, 1st 2014 the EADS Group has changed its name to Airbus
Group. This choice of communication lies in a desire to strengthen collabo-
ration between the di↵erent entities of the Airbus group and to rely on the
strong reputation of the Airbus name in order to find new markets for all
activities. On January, 7 th 2014 Eurocopter changed its name to Airbus
Helicopters.
4
Figure 2.4: Airbus Helicopters logo.
The head office of Airbus Helicopters Division is located in Marignane,

France. It employs about 12,000 workers, including 3,000 subcontractors [4].
Airbus division Helicopters is the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter
of civil helicopters. The group’s mission is to design, produce and market
high-tech helicopters for military, parapublic (ministries other than the army)
and civil customers. The company also provides related services (after-sales
service, training, etc.). The helicopter’s advantages are its ability to take
o↵ and land vertically, to access cramped areas and to move slowly in all
directions. Its high manoeuvrability allows it to adapt to specific situations
such as:
‚ Combat: reconnaissance, anti-tank combat, support and protection of

ground troops, transport of troops or equipment.
‚ Firefighting
‚ Civil transport (sightseeing flight) and VIP transport
‚ Evacuation of people in distress, on land, sea or mountain
‚ Oversight of police and customs services
‚ The transport of goods
‚ Lifting of construction equipment
The success of Airbus Helicopters is based on a very wide range of prod-

ucts and the reliability of its aircraft. The Group’s products account for 30%
of the world’s entire helicopter fleet. The company’s latest product is the
H160, a new medium-tonnage helicopter. It features design elements and
modern engine technology. It stands out in particular for its exceptional
maneuverability and excellent acoustic performance. The pre-series model
has been in circulation since the beginning of 2019 and orders have already
been received. The military version of this aircraft, the H160M, christened
Guépard, was officially presented at the last International Paris Air Show at
Le Bourget. The first flight has been announced for 2023.
5
Figure 2.5: H160 first pre series exemplar and military model ”Guépard”.
2.2.2 H130
The H130 is a member of Airbus’ Ecureuil family, which represents 42% of
Airbus’ in-service fleet and has accumulated more than 33 million flight hours
worldwide. There are more than 646 H130s operated in 50 countries. The
H130 is an intermediate single-engine helicopter with three blades on the
main rotor tailored for passenger transportation, sightseeing and VIP duties,
medical airlift, law enforcement and surveillance missions. It has a cabin up
to 7 passengers and a range of 617 km and a fast cruise speed of 128 knots
(237km/h [5] ). As the best-selling helicopter of the company the continuous
improvement is common on this helicopter so all components need to be
carefully investigated to adapt to those upgrades.
Figure 2.6: H130 in flight
2.3 Basics of aerodynamics

In this study the aerodynamic of the fan will be changed so a quick overview
of aerodynamic forces and vocabulary is provided.
6
Figure 2.7: Airfoil nomenclature [1].
An airfoil is described by its geometry Fig 2.7: the upper surface and
lower surface, the leading edge which is the point at the front that has the
maximum radius and corresponds to the stagnation point. The trailing edge
is defined at the other end of the airfoil. The chord c, Fig 2.8, is the line
defined between the leading and the trailing edge. The mean camber line is
the line defined midway between the upper and lower surfaces; it depends on
the thickness and camber. The angle of attack ↵ is the angle between the
relative wind direction U8 , Fig 2.8, and the chord line [6].
The aerodynamic force is the force that the fluid is applying on the body
in which it is submerged due to the relative motion between the body and
the fluid, Fig 2.8. Depending on the chosen axes one can distinguish di↵erent
sets of components of the resultant aerodynamic force R. With respect to the
body axes, the two components are the normal force N and the axial force
A, perpendicular and parallel to the airfoil chord line respectively. Moreover,
the lift L, and the drag D, are the components of the aerodynamic force in
the freestream axes where the lift is the force perpendicular to the direction
of freestream velocity U8 and the drag is parallel to the relative freestream
velocity [7].
7
Figure 2.8: Aerodynamic forces [2].
They are defined as:

#
L “ N cos↵ ´ Asin↵
(2.1)
D “ Acos↵ ` N sin↵
From these forces are calculated the lift and drag coefficients that depends
on the geometry and on the fluid characteristics:
2L 2D
CL “ ; CD “ (2.2)
⇢SU8 2 ⇢SU8 2
With ⇢ is the density of the fluid, S is the wing surface area and U8 is the
freestream velocity.
8
Chapter 3
Methodology
This chapter goes through the theory behind CFD and the models used in
this trainee. It also explains the domain used and the quantities measured.
3.1 CFD Tools

3.1.1 Governing equations
CFD codes solve the continuity, momentum and energy equations. These
coupled partial nonlinear di↵erential equations are in general not easy to
solve numerically and analytical solutions are available for only very few
limited cases. The equations in case of incompressible fluid which will be the
case for this study are the following [8].
$
’ B⇢
’
’ ` r ¨ p⇢uq “ 0 Continuity
’
’ Bt
’
’
&
Du
⇢ “ ´r ¨ p ` r ¨ ⌧ ` ⇢ g Momentum (3.1)
’
’ Dt
’
’
’
’
% Bp⇢Eq ` r ¨ p⇢EVq “ r ¨ p⌧ ¨ Vq ` ⇢g ¨ V ` r ¨ q Energy
’
Bt
Where ⇢ is the density of the fluid, u is the Eulerian velocity vector of a
fluid particle, ⌧ is the viscous constraints tensor, p is the pressure, g is an
exterior surface force, E is the total energy per mass unit and q is the heat
flux.
The first equation is the continuity equation and comes for the mass
conservation. The second is the Cauchy momentum equation or momentum
conservation equation and comes from the second Newton law. The third
9
equation is the energy equation and come from the global energy of the
system.
The system 3.1 is a system of non-linear partial di↵erential equations.
The non-linearity occurs in the material derivative in the momentum equa-
tion. In order to solve it, boundary conditions are fixed. The CFD packages
use various numerical methods based on a mesh [9]. Finite-element methods
require a 2D or 3D mesh and are very flexible in terms of geometry and mesh
elements. At each mesh element, a base function is used. This base function
should locally describe the solution of (or part of) the governing equation to
be approximated. The finite-element method aims to minimize the di↵erence
between the exact solution and the collection of base functions [10]. How-
ever, problems in the fluid-mechanics area are generally governed by local
conservation. For instance, the continuity equation dictates the local con-
servation of mass. Local conservation is not necessarily a property of the
finite-element method, since the di↵erence between the base functions and
the exact solution is minimized globally. Most of the CFD packages are using
Finite Volume Method for the mesh since it is based on local conservation.
To solve the equations numerically with the finite volume method, the en-
tire computational domain is divided into ‘small’ sub-volumes, so-called cells.
Employing Gauss’ law, the partial derivatives expressing a conservation prin-
ciple, such as r¨u, can be rewritten at each cell as an algebraic contribution.
The governing equations are reformulated, at each computational cell, into a
set of linear algebraic equations. These equations are solved in an iterative
manner afterwards. The price for this so-called discretization of the domain
is the introduction of a numerical error into the solution [11].
For this simulation the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equa-
tions are solved to simplify the turbulence modelling and computations. They
are time-averaged equations of motion. The method is based on the decom-
position of every variable into the mean value and the fluctuating value of
the variable. Moreover the derivation of a mean value is equal to zero, so
this decomposition will greatly help to solve the equations.
3.1.2 The Case Study

In order to compute the new designs that will be made the CFD package
Ansys Fluent which solves the RANS equations is used. For the simulation
to give satisfactory results an appropriate domain needs to be created. Here
it is a tube long enough before the fan for the air to stabilize and after the
fan for the flow to converge toward a stable flow. To simulate the rotation
of the fan the MRF (Multiple Reference Frame) meshing option in Ansys is
used. The MRF is a steady-state approximation in which rotational and/or
10
translational speeds can be assigned to cell zones. It does not account for the
relative motion of a moving zone around other zones, in this case the mesh
remains fixed for the computation. It can be compared to freezing the motion
of the moving cell zone in a specific position and computing the instantaneous
flow field with the moving zone in that position [12]. To calculate the mass
flow rate the pressure loss is imposed thanks to a parameter that will fix the
pressure at the pressure inlet and outlet. As the rotation is simulated thanks
to the MRF, the other surfaces will be set as walls. This gives the following
domain:
Figure 3.1: Domain of Computation.
The result is a fairly light mesh of around 15 million elements in 2D, at

the scale of the company which is used to have 50 millions elements mesh in
2D. The computation is realized in few hours thanks to the company means,
which are clusters of thousand cores dedicated to performing calculations.
For this study the AH process requires to use RANS equations and a k ´ ✏
turbulence model which is commonly used in this kind of simulations.
Figure 3.2: Torque and axial force created on the fan by air.
The force on the rotation axis created by the fan which is the result of
the lift created by the blades, and the torque on the fan which is the result of
11
the drag created by the blades are computed in this simulation. The forces
are shown on Fig 3.2. And powers can be calculated from these forces:
Paero “ Faxis v and Pnec “ T ! (3.2)
where Paero is the aerodynamic power given by the force along the rotation
axis created by the blades Faxis and the fluid velocity along that axis v. And
Pnec is the necessary power to rotate the fan and is given by the torque T
and the rotational speed of the fan !. This power will then be assimilated
to an electric power. In Eq. 3.2, the speed v is obtained with the measured
mass flow rate q and the stator surface around the fan S:
q
v“ (3.3)
S
And the efficiency of the fan is:
Paero
⌘“ (3.4)
Pnec
3.1.3 Turbulence model

The k ´ ✏ model is a two-equation turbulence model which make it one of the
simplest turbulence models. The two equations are two separate transport
equations based on the turbulence energy k and the dissipation rate ✏. These
two equations allow the turbulent velocity and length scales to be indepen-
dently determined. Compared to the standard k ´ ✏ model, the Realizable
k ´ ✏ model contains a new formulation for the turbulent viscosity and a new
transport equation for the dissipation rate ✏. It is likely to provide supe-
rior performance for flows involving rotation, boundary layers under strong
adverse pressure gradients, separation, and recirculation, strong streamline
curvature, vortices, and rotation [13] [14].
3.1.4 Wall Treatment

The Enhanced Wall Treatment is the wall function that is going to be used for
the simulations. It is a near wall model that combines enhances wall functions
with a two-layer model. If the near-wall mesh is fine enough to be able to
resolve the viscous sublayer: y ` « 1, then the enhanced wall treatment will
be identical to the traditional two-layer zonal model. However, the restriction
that the near-wall mesh must be sufficiently fine everywhere might cause a
very large mesh and an important computation requirement. Ideally, it is
better to have a near-wall formulation that can be used with both coarse and
fine meshes.
12
The Enhanced Wall Treatment is then a near-wall modelling approach
that is capable of modelling with accuracy a fine near-wall mesh without
significantly reducing the accuracy for wall-function meshes by combining
the two-layer model with enhanced wall functions.
The viscosity-a↵ected near-wall region is entirely resolved all the way to
the viscous sublayer with the near-wall model . The two-layer approach is an
integral part of the enhanced wall treatment and is used to specify both ✏ and
the turbulent viscosity in the near-wall cells. In this approach, the domain
is divided into one viscosity-a↵ected region and one fully-turbulent region.
The separation of the two regions is determined by a wall-distance-based,
turbulent Reynolds number, Re y , defined as:
?
⇢y k
Rey ” (3.5)
µ
where y is the wall-normal distance from the nearest wall and is calculated
at the cell centers with the following equation:
y ” min }~r ´ ~rw } (3.6)

rw P
~ w
where ~r is the position vector at the field point, and ~rw is the position
vector of the wall boundary. w is the union of all the wall boundaries
involved. With this interpretation y is uniquely defined in the flow domain
and is independent of the mesh topology.
In the fully turbulent region ( Rey ° 200), the k- ✏ model is employed
whereas in the viscosity-a↵ected near-wall region ( Rey † 200), the one-
equation model of Wolfshtein [15] is employed. In the one-equation model,
the momentum equations and the k equation are retained.
To extend the method to the near-wall region, the CFD software blends
the linear (laminar) and logarithmic (turbulent) laws-of-the-wall:
1
u ` “ e u` `
lam ` e uturb (3.7)
where the blending function is given by:
apy ` q4
“´ (3.8)
1 ` by `
where a “ 0.01 and b “ 5.
The software will then calculate the wall-function to apply to every region
to keep y ` † 60 [16].
13
3.2 Mesh realization and control
To realize a good mesh the geometry need to be simplified first. In fact there
can be some useless surfaces such as holes for screws or chamfers on surfaces.
Also some volumes can be simplified as surfaces. The domain needs to be
created according to the Fig 3.1. To create a good mesh it needs to be more
refined where its behaviour will change. For this case the mesh needs to be
refined on the blades with even closer refinement at the leading and trailing
edge. The boundary layer is meshed with the wall functions that has been
described before. After meshing, the permeability of the mesh needs to be
checked. In fact it can happen that some surfaces are not glued and that the
nodes on both surfaces do not correspond to each other. A tool allows to
join all the surfaces of the model, but it has a limitation that implies local
modification by hand.
Figure 3.3: An example of local impermeability.
On Fig 3.3 it can be seen that the two surfaces has not been joined
perfectly. These are two surfaces of di↵erent parts. So it has to be done
by hand. After checking the permeability and repairing the potential errors,
the quality of the mesh needs to be checked and it is done by checking the
skewness. The skewness allow to check the quality with the following formula:
optimal cell size ´ cell size
Skewness “ (3.9)
optimal cell size
14
Figure 3.4: Skewness theory illustration with the ideal cell size (green), and
the current cell created by the meshing tool (purple).
The optimal cell is an equilateral triangle represented in green in Fig. 3.4

and the current cell is the one in purple. The 2D skewness is a value between
0 and 1. If the cell is an equilateral triangle the skewness will be 0. In this
project the mesh has been generated to keep the skewness lower than 0.5.
Figure 3.5: Example of a skewness correction.
The volume mesh is an unstructured mesh with tetrahedral elements. A

section of the volume mesh is given in the following figure.
15
Figure 3.6: Section of the volume mesh when cutting horizontally the domain
of computation at the middle of the fan.
On the figure above one can see the refinements near the surface of the
fan and around the stator part on the left. The wall treatment can also
be seen on the same parts. The blue zone is the MRF zone so it is refined
compared to the tube in purple.
The residuals given by the computation are the following:
Figure 3.7: Continuity, velocity, energy, k and epsilon residuals.
16
On all the residuals one can observe that when the inlet pressure changes
it forms a spike and that every sub computation for every pressure value is
converging to a stable solution.
17
Chapter 4
State Of The Art
In this chapter, the original fan is analyzed and characterized showing the
di↵erence between the CFD results and a test on the original fan. Note that
due to confidentiality reasons, sensitive information has been omitted from
the results.
As previously said the standard fan was initially designed for trucks and
is used by the company on the H130. The fan was earlier designed on
Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software thanks to surface mapping, but
its design was incorrect so the airfoil has been redesigned in order to create
a more accurate design. In addition to the fan, there are also structural
parts such as a stator and a grid that comes with the fan furnished by the
manufacturer.
18
Figure 4.1: Given CAD (left) and more accurate (right) CAD of the standard
fan of the H130.
Figure 4.2: Complete fan (rotor, stator and grid) design with CAD (left) and
simplified for CFD computation (right).
With the pressure loss in the circuit and with the characteristics of the fan
given by CETIAT, namely the company which provided tests and certifica-
tion for fans, the working point of the fan was found. This point is defined as
the intersection of the two curves namely Pressure Loss and Working Curve
Fan, see Fig. 4.3. The target working point for the new fan, called from now
on simply target point, was calculated and appears as a black diamond on
the figure.
The target point corresponds to the mass flow rate and pressure loss
the new fan has to achieve in order to prevent a overheating of the main
19
gearbox when the H130 is performing a hover flight at the maximum outside
temperature specified on the requirements specification with the maximum
mass onboard it can carry. This point is very important since it will be our
goal when designing the new fan. In this study the goal is to change the
working curve to make it intersect with the pressure loss in the circuit at the
target point as show the thick red line in Fig 4.3.
Figure 4.3: Target point, working curve of the original fan and aim of the
study (thick red line).
The electric circuit that powers the fan will neither be changed. So in
this study we will keep the power specifications on the H130 which will give
a limit in electric power. This design is simulated in order to compare the
simulation results with the test results in terms of pressure loss, mass flow
rate and required power. The test results are furnished by CETIAT which
measured the speed and pressure on the fan to give a working curve.
Figure 4.4: Comparison between CFD computations and test on the original
fan.
20
One can observe that in terms of pressure loss, the simulation is close
to the test for a simple model. Moreover, the CFD computation gives more
linear behaviour than the test. The CFD computations show a margin of
power compared to the H130 limitation. This calculation will be used as
a reference to compare CFD results and real results. The final design will
be therefore scaled with that di↵erence, see Sec 6.3. However, no data is
available for the power consumption of the original fan so this part can no
be scaled.
In the Ansys article [13] it is recommended to be careful when using the
Realizable k- ✏ model with MRF, therefore a computation has been realized
to compare the e↵ects. The results show that the realizable model is more
accurate than the standard one, as shown in the Fig. 4.5. In fact, the
computation with the realizable k- ✏ model gives closer results with respect
to the CETIAT data so it will be used for all the computations.
Figure 4.5: Comparison of turbulence models in Ansys on the original fan.
21
Chapter 5
Parameter investigation
This chapter provides a description of all the parameters found a↵ecting the
aerodynamic performance of the axial fan and how they a↵ect the perfor-
mance.
5.1 Parameter definition

As we can see in Fig. 5.1, the blade airfoil used on the original fan seems to
show room for improvement, so this will be firstly changed.
Figure 5.1: Airfoil of the original fan.
It then raised the question of the thickness as shown on Fig 5.2 of the
airfoil which has been analyzed. Another parameter is the blade angle and
the angle of attack illustrated on Fig 5.3 (left). The angle of attack can
change along the blade which will create a twist as shown on Fig 5.3 (right).
This is called the twisting law of the blade and it will be also analyzed. The
e↵ect of the number of blades on the fan is also an important parameter of
the study. And deflection has been added to the blade to characterize its
22
e↵ect. Finally, the chord distribution along the blade was changed. For the
profile of the blade several thicknesses were used: a thick one called T1, and
two thinner ones T2 and T3. The measured blade angle on the original fan
is called C0 and di↵erent angles C1, C2 will be tried where C1†C0†C2. A
linear and a calculated twisting law will be tested. The e↵ect of the number
of blades will be compared with respect to the original configuration of six
blades and we define B1 as a number of blades with B1°6.
Figure 5.2: Thickness and curvature of an airfoil.
Figure 5.3: Blade angle and twist t of a fan blade.
C3 is the blade angle to have a zero angle of attack, calculated using the
velocity triangle at the leading edge, illustrated in Fig 5.4. According to the
ONERA article on design of turbomachines [17], the triangle is defined by:
$
~ ~ ~
&U “ R ^ !
’
V~ “ ~q {⇢S (5.1)
’
% 2
W “U `V 2 2
Where R ~ is the radius and !~ is the rotational speed of the fan. ~q is the mass
flow rate, ⇢ is the density of the fluid and S is the surface of fluid a↵ected by
the fan. Those quantities define the rotating speed of air U ~ and the absolute
23
speed of air V~ . From these vectors is calculated W~ , the relative speed as
seen by the rotor. From this triangle we find the blade angle .
ˆ ˙
U
“ atan (5.2)
V
Figure 5.4: Velocity triangle for the H130 fan.
This angle is calculated for di↵erent radius of the blade and this gives the
twist distribution along the blade. This is by definition the angle distribution
for a zero angle of attack.
5.2 Blade thickness

The three di↵erent thicknesses T1,T2 and T3 have been used for the analysis,
with the same blade angle and same twisting law to see only the e↵ect of
thickness.
Figure 5.5: E↵ect of the blade thickness on the mass flow rate and the power
consumed.
In Fig 5.5, T1 which is the thickest airfoil, gives the best mass flow rate
at same pressure loss (Fig. 5.5 left) but also requires the highest power to
rotate the fan (Fig. 5.5 right). And T3, the thinnest airfoil gives the lowest
mass flow rate but requires the lowest power. Therefore a thicker airfoil
gives better performance in terms of mass flow rate and with higher required
power. In fact the thicker the airfoil is, the higher the lift coefficient will be
24
resulting in an increase in terms of mass flow rate. However, a thicker airfoil
will also imply more drag and by consequence more power consumption.
5.3 Blade angle

This simulation has been carried out with the same airfoil thickness and same
twisting law in order to observe the e↵ect of the blade angle. The blade angle
is defined by:
↵“ ´ 0 (5.3)
where 0 is the blade angle for zero angle of attack that has been calculated
in Section 5.1 and ↵ is the angle of attack. So a big blade angle gives higher
mass flow rate and higher power is required to rotate the fan since a higher
angle of attack will give more lift but also more drag.
Figure 5.6: E↵ect of the blade angle on the mass flow rate and the power
consumed by the fan.
In Fig 5.6 (left) with C1°C0°C2 defined in increasing order a particular

behaviour is observed with the C2 blade angle. In fact the curve presents
waves which are the sign of local stalling on the blade so a stalling study
needs to be conducted. To perform this analysis, the software Xfoil and
the Ansys software are used. Xfoil is a 2D analysis software to study the
aerodynamic performances of airfoils. A 2D analysis has been carried out
on the airfoil for di↵erent angles of attack to study the performances and
identify the stalling of the profiles used. With CFD computations the blades
are characterized for di↵erent blade angles. The evolution of mass flow rate
and efficiency with respect to the angle of attack are studied to detect the
stalling on the blade.
25
Figure 5.7: Evolution of mass flow rate (left) and efficiency (right) with
respect to the AoA at fixed pressure losses PL1 and PL2.
In Fig. 5.7 a phase of decrease in the efficiency and a deceleration in

the linear growth of the mass flow rate can be observed. These two phases
are actually starting at the same angle of attack so the same blade angle
according to Eq. 5.3. For further calculations this angle will be used and
called C4.
5.4 Number of blades

As for the blade angle analysis, Fig 5.8 shows that an increase in number of
blades resulting in a bigger surface area, will generate lift but also more drag.
This will increase the mass flow rate and the power consumption respectively.
Figure 5.8: E↵ect of the number of blades, namely 6 (T1C1 6B) and more
than 6 (T1C1 B1) on the mass flow rate and power consumed by the fan.
This analysis has been realized with T1 being the thinner airfoil, C1 being
the lowest blade angle and B1°6. From Fig 5.8 one can observe that the gap
with respect to the target has been reduced by adding blades.
However we can also observe that for a small pressure loss, the design
with more blades generates a smaller mass flow rate but also a smaller power
consumption compared to the design with 6 blades. This comes from the
26
overlapping of blades that prevent air to follow the normal path and then
goes through less surface creating less drag and lift consequently.
5.5 Chord distribution

For this study the same number of blades is kept with the medium thickness
T2 and the same blade angle. The chord distribution tested is designed so
that the same gap is kept along the blades of the two test cases.
Figure 5.9: E↵ect of chord distribution on the mass flow rate and power
consumed by the fan. With T2 the original chord distribution and T2 Chord
the new chord distribution.
From Fig 5.9, we can clearly see that the chord distribution has a minimal
impact on the performance so the original chord distribution will be kept.
5.6 Deflection
For this study deflection is added on the blade at mid radius of the blade.
This study has been realized with the thick airfoil T3 and the blade angle
C4 described in Section 5.3. In the T3C4 Deflect case, a deflection of 20 %
of the chord is applied at mid radius.
Figure 5.10: E↵ect of the deflection on the mass flow rate and power con-
sumed by the fan.
The deflection itself should not have almost any impact on the results but
we can observe a slight di↵erence. This is due to the fact that the path of
27
the airflow is not the same with the deflection. In fact, it will encounter the
deflected part in the first place changing the local behaviour of the air. The
result is that it creates less lift so makes the fan move away from the target
but also less drag so less power consumed by the fan.
5.7 Twisting law

From Eq. 5.2 defining the blade angle with the velocity triangle and Eq. 5.1
defining the vectors of the triangle in Sec. 5.1, the angle that gives a zero
angle of attack can be computed at every radius of the blade. The di↵erence
between the angle at the tip and at the root is the twist of the blade. With
these calculations an appropriate twisting law for the whole blade can be
calculated. But for simplicity reasons, it can be approximated by a linear
growth between the root and the tip of the blade. This study is carried out
with the optimal blade angle C4 which is near the stall angle. The risk of
the linear law is that it creates local stalling, worsening the performance of
the blades, whereas the law calculated previously ensures the design to be at
the stall angle along the blade.
Figure 5.11: E↵ect of twisting law on the mass flow rate and power consumed
by the fan.
The result is that the calculated law is giving less drag so consuming less
power as can be seen on Fig 5.11 (right), and on the left part of the figure
one can see that the calculated law also creates more lift so gives a higher
mass flow rate making the design slightly closer to the target. Consequently,
this twist will be kept for all designs.
28
Chapter 6
Fan Design Analysis
In this chapter, di↵erent fan designs are analysed based on the previous
parameter investigation. An iterative approach is used focused on di↵er-
ent characteristics in order to maximise the performance of the original fan
design.
6.1 Low Power Consumption Based Design

The first design is focused on low power consumption to see the margin it
could have in terms of power compared to the limitation, while aiming at
obtaining the best trade o↵ between low power consumption and high mass
flow rate. So in this design, the blades have a low blade angle to ensure
a low power consumption as seen in the previous section. From the e↵ect
of the number of blades the gain of mass flow rate and the cost in power
consumption of one blade was calculated, so the design was defined with a
new number of blades B2 with B2°B1, which would give good performance
but also have a higher cost in power consumption. Therefore a low blade
angle was used for that design to lower the power consumption. A medium
thickness profile was chosen which would give moderate performance and
require less power than the original part.
Figure 6.1: Fan performance for a design based on low power consumption.
29
It is clear from the figure above that this iteration did not give great
results since it has poor performance when subjected to a low pressure loss
and consume more than the original fan. After focusing on the power con-
sumption, the next step aims to increase the mass flow rate.
6.2 High Mass Flow Rate Based Design

In this iteration the optimal blade angle obtained from the stalling study
in Section 5.3 is used in order to have a high mass flow rate. However this
angle will also bring a lot of drag so the power consumption of this fan design
will be higher than the previous one. The same airfoil has been used in this
analysis, namely a medium thick profile. This design has the same number
of blades as in the previous analysis, namely B2.
Figure 6.2: Fan performance for a design based on high mass flow rate.
This design is clearly better in terms of mass flow rate for a given pressure
loss but it is also worse in terms of drag since the blades have a higher angle.
Yet, there is a little margin in terms of power and the target in performance
has not been yet reached. So additional performance improvements needs to
be obtained. In the following section, the hub is changed.
30
6.2.1 New shape of the hub
In the third iteration the design is centered on a new hub. In fact, for now
the air collides on a plan, so it creates local turbulence and the air which
arrives on the root of the blades is not perfectly laminar preventing the root
to work as it should. So in order to gain performance an eclipsed shape hub
has been used which will propagate the air more properly towards the blades.
This solution gives a higher mass flow rate, improving the fan design. This
design will be considered in this project as the optimal and final design.
Figure 6.3: Fan performance for a design based on high mass flow rate with
a new hub.
6.3 CFD Correction

After implementing a number of improvements to the fan design, a correction
needs to be applied on the CFD results with respect to the results from
Section 4 on the comparison between the CFD results of the original fan and
CETIAT results and as said no data on the power consumption was available
for the original so there are no scaling possible in terms of power.
Figure 6.4: Corrected final design fan performance. The full lines being CFD
results and the dashed the test and the scaled final design.
As shown in Fig 6.4, after correction the final design of the fan gives
an even better performance with a mass flow rate increase up to a factor
31
of about two for the pressure loss at the target point compared to the real
original fan (CETIAT).
32
Chapter 7
Mechanical Sizing
After finishing the design, the question of mechanical sizing was raised to
ensure that there will not be any mechanical issue with the new design such
as the blades getting broken.
7.1 Beam Theory

The beam theory is the first approach used to perform an analysis. The blade
is assimilated to a parallelepiped as shown in Fig 7.1 The forces applied on
a blade are the aerodynamic force and the centrifugal force. The centrifugal
force will create traction and the aerodynamic force will create bending.
Figure 7.1: Geometry simplification of a fan blade.
Fc
Fc “ L! 2 mblade ; c “ (7.1)
S
Where Fc is the centrifugal force and is defined by the length of the blade L,
its mass mblade and the rotational speed of the fan !. The torsion constraint
33
c created by the centrifugal force is defined with the surface S “ ce and R
which is the distance from the root to the centre of gravity.
The flexion is given by:
RFaero e ce3
f “ ; I“ (7.2)
I 2 12
Where f is the flexion constraint and is defined with the aerodynamic force
Faero and the second moment of area I.
The total constraint t is obtained by adding the two ones :
t “ c ` f (7.3)
It is compared to the limit constraint of the material. If the total constraint

is below the material limit constraint the beam will not break but if it is
higher the geometry needs to be changed.
In order to test this fan geometry, it has been 3D printed by powder
sintering. So the total constraint needs to be compared to the powder prop-
erties. With this method, a constraint was obtained inferior to the limit so
the design was validated with this method and consequently the blades will
not break when subjected to air.
7.2 Finite Element Analysis

The beam model has been created with many simplifications of the shape.
The CAD software that has been used to design the fan also enables to
perform a quick Finite Element Analysis. In this approach a blade is meshed
and the resultant of the two forces is applied on the centre of gravity. This
method gives a di↵erent total constraint from the last one due to the di↵erent
assumptions but it is still below the material constraint. So this study has
shown that the blades will not break while working.
34
Chapter 8
Conclusion
The original fan of the H130 has been investigated for further improvements.
Through a parameter investigation an optimal design has been defined with
a higher blade angle, a non-linear twisting of the blades, a medium thick
airfoil, a higher number of blades and an eclipsed shape hub. With this op-
timal design the fan performance gets closer to the target point calculated
with the H130 specifications. The gap with respect to the target point was
decreased by a factor of about two compared to the original fan. Finally, a
mechanical sizing study has shown that the blades will not break when the
fan is working, validating the final design.
As a future work this study has proven that the study requirements were
too limiting so there is a need to find a way too change the requirements. This
could be by increasing the power given to the fan which would allow some
changes on the fan itself or on the rotational speed. It could also concern the
modification of the structural parts around the fan since the current one were
not designed for the new blade profile. These parts could also be changed to
design a bigger fan. A test should be carried out to characterize the new fan
design and after validation of the gain a series of tests should be performed
before its installation on the helicopter.
35
Bibliography
[1] Wikipedia. Airfoil nomenclature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfoil.
[2] M. N. Haque; M. Ali; I. Ara. Experimental investigation on the perfor-

mance of naca 4412 aerofoil with curved leading edge planform. Procedia
Engineering, 2015.
[3] Safran Engineering Services. Safran engineering services in short, 2020,

https://www.safran-engineering.com/company.
[4] Airbus Helicopters. Helicopters history, 2020,

https://www.airbus.com/company/history/helicopters-history.html.
[5] Airbus Helicopters. Airbus h130, 2019,

https://www.airbus.com/helicopters/civil-helicopters/intermediate-
single/h130.html#infographics.
[6] E.L Houghton ; P.W. Carpenter. ”Aerodynamics for Engineering Stu-

dents”. Butterworth Heinmann, 2003.
[7] B.S Massey. ”Mechanics of Fluid”. Spon Press, 2012.
[8] P-L Lions. ”Mathematical topics in fluid mechanics, Vol. 1: incompress-

ible models”. Clarendon Press, 1996.
[9] X. Liu; J. Zhang. ”Computational Fluid Dynamics - Applications in

Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater Treatment”. American Society of
Civil Engineers, 2019.
[10] B. Andersson; R. Andersson; L. Håkansson; M. Mortensen; R. Sudiyo; B.

Wachem. ”CFD For Engineers”. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
[11] Y. Nakayama. ”Introduction to Fluid Mechanics”. Elsevier, 2018.
[12] Ansys Fluent. The multiple reference frame model, 2009,

https://www.afs.enea.it/project/neptunius/docs/fluent/html/th/node33.htm.
36
[13] Ansys Fluent. Realizable k ´ ✏ model, 2009,
[14] T.-H. Shih; W. Liou; A. Shabbir; Z. Yang; J. Zhu. A new k ´ ✏ eddy

viscosity model for high reynolds number turbulent flows-model devel-
opment and validation. NASA Institute for computational mechanics in
propulsion, 1994.
[15] M. Wolfshtein. The velocity and temperature distribution of one-

dimensional flow with turbulence augmentation and pressure gradient.
Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 1969.
[16] Ansys Fluent. Enhanced wall treatment, 2009,

[17] G. Meauzé. Aérodynamique des turbomachines. ONERA, 2005.
37

Full Text 01

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full Text 01

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

DEGREE PROJECT IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING,

SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

Study and Design of an Axial

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Academic supervisor and examiner:

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

The cooling system is a crucial part for helicopter operations. Without

4 State Of The Art 18

6 Fan Design Analysis 29

2.1 Safran Engineering Services Logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

3.1 Domain of Computation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

5.1 Airfoil of the original fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

6.1 Fan performance for a design based on low power consumption. 29

7.1 Geometry simplification of a fan blade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

AoA Angle of Attack

CAD Computer-Aided Design

CETIAT Centre Technique des Industries Aérauliques et Thermiques

CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics

MRF Multiple Reference Frame

RANS Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes

SES Safran Engineering Services

E Total Energy per unit of mass

q Mass Flow Rate

Rey Turbulent Reynolds number

y` Dimensionless wall distance

2.1 Safran Engineering Services

Figure 2.1: Safran Engineering Services Logo.

2.2 Airbus Helicopters

Figure 2.2: Eurocopter EC665 Tigre.

Figure 2.3: Eurocopter logo.

The head office of Airbus Helicopters Division is located in Marignane,

‚ Combat: reconnaissance, anti-tank combat, support and protection of

‚ Civil transport (sightseeing flight) and VIP transport

‚ Evacuation of people in distress, on land, sea or mountain

‚ Oversight of police and customs services

‚ The transport of goods

‚ Lifting of construction equipment

The success of Airbus Helicopters is based on a very wide range of prod-

Figure 2.6: H130 in flight

2.3 Basics of aerodynamics

They are defined as:

3.1 CFD Tools

3.1.2 The Case Study

Figure 3.1: Domain of Computation.

The result is a fairly light mesh of around 15 million elements in 2D, at

3.1.3 Turbulence model

3.1.4 Wall Treatment

y ” min }~r ´ ~rw } (3.6)

where the blending function is given by:

Figure 3.3: An example of local impermeability.

The optimal cell is an equilateral triangle represented in green in Fig. 3.4

Figure 3.5: Example of a skewness correction.

The volume mesh is an unstructured mesh with tetrahedral elements. A

Figure 3.7: Continuity, velocity, energy, k and epsilon residuals.

State Of The Art

Figure 4.5: Comparison of turbulence models in Ansys on the original fan.

5.1 Parameter definition

Figure 5.1: Airfoil of the original fan.

Figure 5.2: Thickness and curvature of an airfoil.

Figure 5.3: Blade angle and twist t of a fan blade.

Figure 5.4: Velocity triangle for the H130 fan.

5.2 Blade thickness

5.3 Blade angle

In Fig 5.6 (left) with C1°C0°C2 defined in increasing order a particular