Aerodynamic design of tsagi helicopter airfoils

DOI: 10.34759/vst-2020-2-16-28

Аuthors

Animitsa V. A.^*, Golovkin V. A.^*, Nikolsky A. A.^**

Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky (TsAGI), 1, Zhukovsky str., Zhukovsky, Moscow Region, 140180, Russia

*e-mail: spintest@tsagi.ru
**e-mail: anikolskii@mail.ru

Abstract

The article discusses the distinctive features of helicopter airfoils flow-around generating integral criteria of their aerodynamic perfection. It demonstrates the importance of the concept of helicopter aerodynamic airfoils and its role in the system, including all cycles of aerodynamic configuration development of rotor blades from the objective function definition up to the elaboration (based on calculation and experimental studies) of recommendations for industrial application. The authors suggest a new approach to comparing experimental helicopter airfoils performance by to the three integral criteria.

The article describes a systematic approach to the development of TsAGI helicopter airfoils for aerodynamic configuration of rotor blades based on the calculation and experimental system. This system empooys the qualitative relationship between the objective vector of main rotor aerodynamic performance and the set of objective vectors of airfoil aerodynamic performance, which allows developing prospective helicopter airfoils for main and tail rotor blades for multipurpose helicopter based on the aerodynamic design procedure. The features of the complex procedure of aerodynamic design of helicopter airfoils used in TsAGI, and its main structural elements are under discussion. Quantitative relationship establishing of the main rotor performance vector and the airfoils performance vectors is performed at the stage of experimental studies of new aerodynamic configurations on large-scale models of the main rotor in wind tunnels. Some results of such

kind of studies are presented on the example of comparing conventional and perspective rotor configurations.

Experiments in the wind tunnel and flight tests confirm the effectiveness of the application and the need to further developing the new series of TsAGI airfoils designed to create aerodynamic configurations of the main rotor blades of modified and prospective helicopters with improved aerodynamic performance.

Based on the TsAGI calculation and experimental system, the article suggests new aerodynamic airfoil configurations of modified and perspective main and tail rotors of domestic helicopters. In particular, the TsAGI developments and their implementation in the design of the blades of the experimental main rotor at Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant allowed reaching record flight speeds of the helicopter — the flying laboratory of the classic single-rotor scheme (without wing and additional propulsive devices).

Keywords:

TsAGI helicopter airfoil, aerodynamic airfoil design, main rotor blade

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