21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-2.6.1

EROS: A EUROPEAN EULER CODE FOR HELICOPTER ROTOR FLOW SIMULATIONS

Renzoni P. (CrRA), D'Alascio A. (CrRA), Kroll N. (DLR), Peshkin D. (DERA), Hounjet M. H. L. (NLR), Boniface J.-C. (ONERA), Vigevano L. (Polit. Milano), Morino L. (Univ. Roma Tre), Allen C. B. (Univ. Bristol), Dubuc L. (Univ. Glasgow), Righi M. (Agusta), Schoell E. (ECD), Kokkalis A. (GKN-WHL)
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Keywords: eros, a european euler code, helicopter rotor flow simulation

The helicopter rotor flow field is one of the most complex and challenging problems in applied aerodynamics. Its accurate analysis is essential in the design of rotors with increased performance and in the development of rotors with reduced vibratory loads and with more environmentally-friendly acoustic signatures. There is an industrial need in Europe for a rotor aerodynamic prediction tool able to capture rotational phenomena, such as blade tip and wake vortices, and to predict correctly the unsteady blade pressures over a range of different flight conditions. The EROS project addresses this need by developing a common European system capable of analysing the inviscid rotor flow environment by solving the 3D Euler equations. The method is based on a proven-technology time-accurate Euler formulation on overlapping structured grids (Chimera method). The grid generator provides an all-in-one capability for grid generation guiding the user from the generation of individual component grids to the Chimera domain decomposition through an interactive process which has embedded visualisation and animation capabilities. The cell-centred finite-volume solver adopts a dual-time implicit scheme on deforming grids. Nonconservative interpolation is used to transfer information across grid overlap regions. The current capabilities of the code are presented and future developments are described.

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