Recent Applications of Design Optimization to Rotorcraft—A Survey

This paper presents a survey of applications of design optimization to helicopter problems carried out in the last decade. Helicopter optimization has not yet reached the same maturity as structural optimization, and some potential reasons are discussed flrst. Next, published optimization studies are reviewed, divided into sensi-tivity analysis studies, applications to rotor dynamics and aeroelasticity, applications to other helicopter prob-lems, emerging technologies such as genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, and studies with experimen-tal veriflcation. The usefulness of design optimization for helicopter applications will increase with the avail-ability of improved analyses, more e–cient algorithms especially for sensitivity calculations, and further exper-imental veriflcations. The formulation of representative optimization test problem, including experimental veri-flcation, is also recommended