Aeroelastic Simulation of a Hingeless Model Rotor with a Flexible Multibody Model

A multibody system model of a helicopter model rotor with hingeless rotor head system has been set up to validate a new simulation workflow in a coupling with a comprehensive aeromechanics code. The rotor blades' flexibility is considered by a geometrically nonlinear composite beam description that has been validated regarding important rotor dynamic effects in a previous work. A new approach to model the FE cross-sections of a rotor blade was employed to generate the data for the reduced beam representation. The aerodynamics of the rotor blades are calculated by the comprehensive aeromechanics code. A trim algorithm is used to subject the coupled model to loads encountered in the wind tunnel test of the HART II campaign. The simulation results of the coupled model are compared to wind tunnel test data