The BRITE/EURAM Programme "HELISHAPE" - A Successful Step to better Helicopter Aerodynamic and Aeroacoustic Description.

Abstract

In order to improve performance and public acceptance of current and future helicopters, analytical and experimental investigations on rotor aerodynamics and aeroacoustics have been performed in the research project HELISHAPE funded by the European Community under the BRITE/EURAM programme. Dedicated analytical methods were developed, improved and validated. In addition, helicopter feasibility have been studied. The work was subdivided into six tasks: In the 1st task, two different 3D Euler codes for the description of multibladed hovering rotors have been further developed. In addition, a 2D Navier-Stokes code has been improved to simulate dynamic stall for oscillating airfoils. In task 2, as co-operative activity of several consortium members, a common 3D full potential code has been created for the analytical simulation of the entire helicopter flight regime. In task 3, different existing boundary element methods have been improved in order.