Flowfield of a lifting hovering rotor: A Navier-Stokes simulation

The viscous, three-dimensional flowfield of a lifting helicopter rotor in hover is calculated by using an upwind, implicit, finite-difference numerical method for solving the thin layer Navier-Stokes equations. The induced effects of the wake, including the interaction of tip vortices with successive blades, are calculated as a part of the overall flowfield solution without using any ad hoc wake models. Comparison of the numerical results for the subsonic and transonic conditions show good agreement with the experimental data and with the previously published Navier-Stokes calculations using a simple wake model. Some comparisons with Euler calculations are also presented, along with some discussions of the grid refinement studies