Numerical Simulations on the PSP Rotor Using HMB3

This work presents CFD analyses of the isolated Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) model rotor blade in hover and forward flight using the structured multi-block CFD solver of Glasgow University. In hover, two blade-tip Mach numbers (0.585 and 0.65) were simulated for a range of blade pitch angles using fully-turbulent flow and the k-ω SST model. Results at blade-tip Mach number of 0.585 showed a fair agreement with experimental Figure of Merit and surface pressure coefficients obtained in the Rotor Test Cell (RTC) at NASA Langley Research Center. Comparisons are presented at blade-tip Mach number of 0.65 in terms of integral blade loads, surface pressure coefficients and position of the tip-vortex cores with published numerical data. Finally, the flow around the PSP rotor in forward flight was also computed at medium thrust (CT =0.006) and results were compared with published experimental data