Design and analytical study of a rotor airfoil

Abstract

An airfoil section for use on helicopter rotor blades was defined and analyzed by means of potential flow/boundary layer interaction and viscous transonic flow methods to meet as closely as possible a set of advanced airfoil design objectives. The design efforts showed that the first priority objectives, including selected low speed pitching moment, maximum lift and drag divergence requirements can be met, though marginally. The maximum lift requirement at M = 0.5 and most of the profile drag objectives cannot be met without some compromise of at least one of the higher order priorities.