Numerical Investigations for Passive and Active Flow Control on Tiltrotor–Wing Aerodynamic Interactions

Abstract

Numerical investigations for passive and active controls on aerodynamic interactions of the rotor/wing of a tiltrotor aircraft are conducted in hovering flight. The moving embedded grid method and the helicopter code CLORNS are adopted to simulate the unsteady flowfield of the tiltrotor/wing, and the droop leading edge (DLE), trailing edge flap (TEF), and blowing jet are combined to investigate the control effects on the download of a wing in a three-dimensional (3D) rotor/wing interaction environment. The numerical results indicate that both the passive and active controls have the possibility to decrease the download of a wing, and the download coefficient could be reduced by approximately 72.4% using the combination of DLE and TEF. Moreover, the jet with a combination of DLE and TEF could effectively suppress the flow separation at the trailing edge region, thus improving the aerodynamic characteristics of the tiltrotor and wing, and the loss of rotor thrust and download of the wing could be reduced to 10.3% and 60.6%, respectively.