| Advisor(s) | Alberto Guardone, Dario Isola, Massimo Biava |
| Expected duration | 6 months (one student) |
| Description | In many relevant applications in the aerospace field Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become largely widespread and accepted as a design tool. However in the field of rotary wings, numerical methods for aerodynamics are probably not as predominant as in the fixed-wing applications. Indeed the helicopter feature many additional difficulties such as: the natural unsteadiness nature of the flow-field, the strong blade/wake interaction and the essential coupling between the aerodynamic field and the structure. Major efforts have been spent at Politecnico di Milano to develop numerical methods for rotary wing applications. As result the ROSITA solver has become a standard tool for aerodynamic computations at Agusta-Westland. However the on going research on the development of efficient and accurate schemes continuously sets higher standards, and very promising results have been shown by Flowmesh, the most recent solver developed at DIA. Flowmesh is a finite-volumes solver for the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation of the Euler equations that implements a unique strategy that allows to perform adaptive computations without resorting to any interpolation step. As part of the developing team the student is expected to set-up and run rotating grid simulations for a helicopter rotor in hover to predict the aerodynamic performances. |
| Required tasks | Grid convergence analysis for the single blade problem. Mesh generation for the hovering rotor problem and choice of the boundary conditions, e.g. actuator disc. Prescription of the velocity of grid that is rotating about the hub. Computation of the thrust and power coefficients for the rotor and comparision with the experimental data and the theory. |
| Tools and languages | Flowmesh, Gambit, Fortran, Matlab |
| Prerequisites | FEM/FV methods (basic), helicopter theory (good), Fortran (basic) |
| Contacts | Please send an email to Alberto Guardone or Dario Isola, see contacts page. |