An investigation of coupling ship/rotor flowfield using steady and unsteady rotor methods

A coupling numerical methodology has been developed using the Navier–Stokes solver for ship/rotor flowfield simulation during the helicopter shipboard launch. The steady rotor model (SRM) based on the momentum source approach and unsteady rotor model (URM) based on the moving overset mesh method are respectively employed to account for rotor operations. Studies of coupling ship/rotor flowfield on two typical ships highlight complex interactions over the flight deck. It is shown that the rotor-shipboard vortex interaction and recirculation zone are more serious for small-sized-deck destroyers, while on the straight-through-deck ship the helicopter operations are sensitive to asymmetric distribution of lateral velocity caused by the island. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons in terms of vorticity and velocity between SRM and URM solvers have been conducted. The results demonstrate that both methods can capture complex interactions well. The velocity difference is within 1 m/s in most flowfield areas, except the rotor-wake dominant region. With the consideration of computational efficiency, the momentum source approach could be used to effectively conduct the study of helicopter shipboard operations