Master thesis assignment: Tilt-rotor-wing aerodynamic modelling for aeroelastic analysis

What will you be doing?

Tilt-rotor aircraft offer a significant advantage over conventional helicopters in terms of cruise speed and efficiency. NLR is currently preparing a wind tunnel test of a tilt-rotor-wing configuration. The focus of the wind tunnel test is aeroelastic stability (i.e. flutter and limit-cycle oscillations). The goal of this test is to gather data for validation of comprehensive analysis tools. To assist the aeroelastic wind tunnel model design & development, simulations with a comprehensive rotorcraft modelling software are performed as well.

The comprehensive modelling software that is used for these investigations offers various methods to model the aerodynamics of the tilt-rotor-wing model. You will investigate what kind of aerodynamic modelling is most suited with regards to aeroelastic analysis. To do so, you will perform a literature study and then evaluate various aerodynamic models, for primarily the wing and nacelle, ranging from low to mid-fidelity. Furthermore, CFD simulations of the nacelle shall be performed, starting from an existing grid, to obtain inputs for the low-fidelity model. You will compare the results of the various aerodynamic modelling approaches and assess their effect on aeroelastic stability predictions as well as compare their computational cost.

Result