Investigation of Trailing-Edge Flap Gap Effects on Rotor Performance Using High-Fidelity Analysis

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Abstract
Effects of trailing-edge flap gaps on rotor performance are investigated using a high-fidelity coupled computational fluid dynamics computational structural dynamics analysis. Both integral flap (the flap is an integral part of the blade such that there are no physical gaps at the flap ends) and discrete flap (the flap is a separate entity with physical gaps in the span and chord directions) are examined on an UH-60A rotor at high-speed forward-flight conditions. A novel grid deformation scheme based on the Delaunay graph mapping is developed and implemented to allow the computational fluid dynamics modeling of the gaps with minimal distortion of mesh around the flap gap regions. This method offers an alternative to the traditional approach of modeling such configurations using overset meshes. The simulation results show that the effectiveness of the flap is minimally affected with span gaps; the penalty on rotor performance is of the order of 1% compared to the integral flap. On the other hand, the chord...

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