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Rotorcraft virtual engineering; supporting life-cycle engineering through design and development, test and certification and operations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2018

G. D. Padfield*
Affiliation:
Aerospace Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
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Abstract

The rotorcraft industry needs Virtual Engineering first to ensure decisions made early in the life-cycle, at the requirements capture and preliminary design phases for example, are reliably informed. Later, in design, development and qualification, Virtual Prototypes can become the centre of attention for critical reviews and, ultimately, certification itself. A significant challenge is to ensure that model fidelity is good enough, not only for supporting design decisions but also in establishing requirements based on sufficiently mature technologies. This international conference, Rotorcraft virtual engineering; supporting life-cycle engineering through design and development, test and certification and operations and co-sponsored by the RAeS/AHS/A3F/DGLR/AIDAA addressed these themes and this paper reviews and assesses the value of the various contributions.

Information

Type
Survey Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 2018 
Figure 0

Figure 1. Committed and expended costs during the life-cycle of a product.

(Padfield, So You Want To Be An Engineer, ISBN 978-0-9929017, based on INCOSE's Systems Engineering Handbook).
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Figure 2. Schematic of Airbus's approach to coupling aerodynamics and flight mechanics simulation through the life-cycle (1).

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Figure 3. Capabilities of different simulation methods – an Airbus Helicopters’ perspective (1).

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Figure 4. Image from the AW169 tail rotor loss simulation trials (Leonardo) (11).

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Figure 5. The AW189 with correlation of flight test and simulation for rate of climb in the mid-speed range showing good model fidelity (16).

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Figure 6. Adoption of simulation in design (11).

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Figure 7. Analysis breadth and fidelity (2).

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Figure 8. FEM analysis of the primary structure with the respect to major load cases (5).

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Figure 9. Process for reliability and safety analysis (18).

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Figure 10. Schrage's VBA model for evaluating system effectiveness (17).

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Figure 11. Key stakeholders must participate in system acquisition (17).

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Figure 12. elsA calculation of a tilt-rotor full configuration (6).

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Figure 13. Rotor-optimisation based on CFD-solver FLOWer (6).

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Figure 14. Virtual airdyne assessment of future frigate superstructure aerodynamics (9).

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Figure 15. Acoustic results of DNW-LLF tests showing the ERATO rotor with significantly less BVI noise signature compared to the straight reference blade (12).

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Figure 16. Flight testing trials of an Airbus Helicopters H160 prototype (12).

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Figure 17. CFD prediction of the rotor wake – ground surface interaction (V=4kts) (21).

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Figure 18. Chart depicting particles affected as a function of height and speed (21).

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Figure 19. DLR AVES flight simulator (Jones).

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Figure 20. Example of microscale modelling inter-diffusion of thermoplastics and epoxy resin precursors (20).

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Figure 21. Example of a fibre angle field resulting from the optimisation within TopSteer (20).

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Figure 22. Summary of the FLIGHTLAB development environment (13).