Title: Development of a preliminary design tool for rotary wing aircrafts

Authors: Tomás Figueiredo Ventura Pimentel Fontes; Filipe Szolnoky Ramos Pinto Cunha

Addresses: Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal ' IDMEC, Mechanical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract: The aim of this work is to provide a free, open-source, software tool to engineers, engineering students or any other people interested in rotorcraft design with a user friendly nature that allows for quick design alterations and performance analysis. The two main theories used in the calculations are the momentum theory and the blade element theory, the results obtained are presented as different types of plots (power versus velocity, rotor disk distributions, blade geometry visualisation, design space generation) and also as numeric quantities (total power, total thrust, collective and cyclic pitch inputs). The reliability of the tool is guaranteed by a validation process which compares actual flight data with results obtained through the tool.

Keywords: momentum theory; blade element theory; aircraft performance; preliminary design; design space.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSA.2022.120615

International Journal of Sustainable Aviation, 2022 Vol.8 No.1, pp.15 - 53

Received: 06 Jul 2021
Accepted: 23 Sep 2021
Published online: 28 Jan 2022 *

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