Experimental and Analytical Analysis of Rotor-Wing Interaction in Hover for Low Reynolds Number Flow

Abstract

Hover performance for tiltrotor-like vehicles lacks experimental data and computationally efficient models for single-rotor-wing interactions at low disk loadings and low Reynolds numbers. As such, this paper discusses a rotor-wing interaction experiment near the micro-air-vehicle (MAV) regime (Reynolds number <100,000 and disk loading <100 N/m2). The experiment and corresponding analysis examine the effect of rotor height and rotor disk coverage in terms of hover performance and download force on the wing. Also, the paper details the development of a potential flow solution for single-rotor-wing interactions based on actuator disk theory, image vortices, and momentum theory. The analytical model only requires the rotor radius, which assists in preliminary design studies on tiltrotor-like vehicles. The analytical results compare well with the experimental data in terms of magnitude and trend.