Abstract:
The flowfield around a helicopter rotor in forward flight is intrinsically
unsteady and contains many complex interacting flow phenomena. As a consequence
experimental investigations are difficult to perform, difficult to interpret and costly.
There is a clear need for reliable computational methods whose uncertainties are less
than those of experiment. In this paper computational methods currently available for
the solution of problems in rotor aerodynamics are examined and the current direction
of research in this field identified.
