Three-dimensional unsteady Euler equations are numerically solved to simulate the unsteady flows around forward flight helicopter with coaxial rotors based on unstructured dynamic overset grids. The performances of the two coaxial rotors both become worse because of the aerodynamic interaction between them, and the influence of the top rotor on the bottom rotor is greater than that of the bottom rotor on the top rotor. The downwash velocity at the bottom rotor plane is much larger than that at the top rotor plane, and the downwash velocity at the top rotor plane is a little larger than that at an individual rotor plane. The downwash velocity and thrust coefficient both become larger when the collective angle of blades is added. When the spacing between the two coaxial rotors increases, the thrust coefficient of the top rotor increases, but the total thrust coefficient reduces a little, because the decrease of the bottom rotor thrust coefficient is larger than the increase of the top rotor thrust coefficient.
A method of unstructured dynamic overset grids is developed for the numerical simulation of helicopter unsteady rotorairframe aerodynamic interaction.For the effective treatment of the relative motion between the rotor and the airframe,the domain of flowfield is divided into two overset subzones,namely,a rotational subzone containing the blades and a stationary subzone containing the airframe.The overset part of two subzones is used to convect the flow variables of the two zones.The Taylor series expansion is used to obtain a second-order spatial accuracy,and dual-time stepping is adopted to improve the solution accuracy.Mesh deformation from the blade motion in forward flight is treated by using a spring analogy.Validation is made by numerically simulating the flows around a wind tunnel configuration and comparing the predicted time-averaged and instantaneous inflow and airframe surface pressure distributions with the experimental data.It shows that the present method is efficient and robust for the prediction of complicated unsteady rotor-airframe aerodynamic interaction phenomena.
