Ph.D. Proposal

Pranav Sridhar

(Advisor: Prof. Marilyn J. Smith)

Computational Assessment of the Interactional Proprotor—Wing Aerodynamics during Tiltrotor Conversion"

 

Friday, December 13 

1:00 p.m. 
Price Gilbert Library 4442
 

Abstract

Recently, Urban/Advanced Air Mobility (UAM/AAM) aircraft concepts have increasingly become a focus of research and development in the Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTL) sector. Many of these new vehicle concepts rely on wingborne flight and sport a combination of lifting and propulsive components. An attractive candidate for such concepts is the tiltrotor design, where the proprotor performs both roles, providing lift during low-speed and hover operations and propulsion during the cruise flight segment. The ability for a tiltrotor to transition between these flight modes results in complex aerodynamic interactions between the proprotor and the wing, particularly during the conversion maneuver, which requires further elucidation. With the advances of computational tools over the last few decades, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are now able to resolve much of the complex aerodynamic interactions present for tiltrotor aircraft. However, much of the existing literature addresses specific vehicle configurations and a study of the fundamental aerodynamics and flow physics for a generic configuration is yet to be studied.
This research investigates the impact of various computational simulation parameters in capturing the fundamental flow physics associated with these complex flow environments. The investigations include studies into the impact of turbulence model selection on the predicted airloads for a rotor with and without aeroelastic coupling. Applying the knowledge gained from the turbulence model study, evaluations are conducted regarding the ability of high-fidelity CFD to capture the complex flow physics for a proprotor--wing configuration for various static points throughout the tiltrotor conversion maneuver. This study will also assess the impact of facility effects when comparing the CFD predictions to experimental measurements. Finally, this study assesses the ability for reduced-fidelity methods to capture the complex flow physics, quantifying the accuracy versus computational efficiency of the reduced-fidelity model compared to the high-fidelity CFD assessments.

Committee
•    Prof. Marilyn J. Smith – Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (advisor)
•    Prof. Juergen Rauleder – Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
•    Prof. Brian J. German – Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
•    Dr. Buvaneswari Jayaraman – US Army DEVCOM Aviation and Missile Center, Moffett Field, CA
•    Dr. Steven A. Tran – Science and Technology Corporation, NASA Ames Research Center
•    Dr. Beckett Y. Zhou – Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering