Helicopter Rotor Blade Flexibility Simulation for Aeroelasticity and Flight Dynamics Applications

This paper presents a mathematical model for the simulation of rotor blade flexibility in real-time helicopter flight dynamics applications that also employs sufficient modeling fidelity for prediction of structural blade loads. A matrix/vector-based formulation is developed for the treatment of elastic blade kinematics in the time domain. A novel, second-order-accurate, finite-difference scheme is employed for the approximation of the blade motion derivatives. The proposed method is coupled with a finite-state induced-flow model, a dynamic wake distortion model, and an unsteady blade element aerodynamics model. The integrated approach is deployed to investigate trim controls, stability and control derivatives, nonlinear control response characteristics, and structural blade loads for a hingeless rotor helicopter. It is shown that the developed methodology exhibits modeling accuracy comparable to that of non-real-time comprehensive rotorcraft codes. The proposed method is suitable for real-time flight simulation, with sufficient fidelity for simultaneous prediction of oscillatory blade loads.