A Scalable Dynamic Rotorcraft Model Test Facility

Acquisition cost reductions for future Army manned rotorcraft and UAVs will require advanced testing tools to support design development prior to flight testing. All too often, rotorcraft suffer from interactional aerodynamic effects that prolong theintroduction of new aircraft, while configuration changes are made to address trim and stability/control shortfalls. Continuum Dynamics, Inc. (CDI) proposes the development of a new dynamic model rotorcraft testing facility, which may be scaled toaccommodate a variety of wind tunnels and test venues. This system will leverage previous corporate experience in dynamic model rotor testing and a first-principles, time-accurate free wake analysis to design model supports and instrumentation thatpermits testing of the dynamic response of rotorcraft in a limited degree-of-freedom model experiment. Use of a high-end, scalable rotorcraft model will aid the understanding of the scaling issues and limitations of the test facility. The proposed PhaseI program will carry through the conceptual design of this new rotor system testing tool and demonstrate feasibility through a combination of analysis and experimental demonstration of key components. The goal of Phase I will be identification of acandidate test facility for fabrication and evaluation testing in Phase II. Accurate dynamic model testing of rotorcraft would bring substantial reductions in acquisition cost for a wide range of rotorcraft concepts, through the reduction of time-consumingand expensive configuration changes at the prototype stage. Understanding of the various design and operational limitations present in a rotorcraft configuration through dynamic testing would be particularly significant for the coming generation of ArmyVTOL UAVs. The test facility could help support both military applications and commercial rotorcraft, where the eventual payoff in operational cost reductions would be still more significant.