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The Art of the Helicopter John Watkinson - Karatunov.net

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82 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Art</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Helicopter</strong><br />

Fig. 3.15 (a) <strong>The</strong> pressure difference across <strong>the</strong> blade due to <strong>the</strong> generation <strong>of</strong> lift results in a flow from<br />

bottom to top around <strong>the</strong> tip that results in a spiral vortex. (b) In <strong>the</strong> hover <strong>the</strong> tip vortices are swept away<br />

downwards, but not as fast as <strong>the</strong> inflow which is generally faster towards <strong>the</strong> tip.<br />

Tip loss may be reduced by tapering and by twisting <strong>the</strong> blade near <strong>the</strong> tip so that<br />

<strong>the</strong> angle <strong>of</strong> attack is small. <strong>The</strong> pressure differential is <strong>the</strong>n minimized across <strong>the</strong> tip.<br />

This cannot be taken too far as very small tip chords will operate at poor Reynolds<br />

numbers and suffer poor L/D. As a practical matter space will also be needed for tip<br />

weights.<br />

It will be seen in Figure 3.15(b) that <strong>the</strong> result <strong>of</strong> non-uniform inflow is that <strong>the</strong> air<br />

disturbed by <strong>the</strong> passage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> blades changes from a disc to a cone and shrinks in<br />

diameter due to wake contraction.<br />

In autorotation <strong>the</strong> vortices are swept away upwards. Thus in climb, hover or autorotation<br />

<strong>the</strong> vortices are always carried <strong>of</strong>f by <strong>the</strong> slipstream. However, if a vertical powered<br />

descent is attempted, <strong>the</strong> machine descends into its own inflow and <strong>the</strong> vortices<br />

from successive blade sweeps are closer toge<strong>the</strong>r and begin to reinforce one ano<strong>the</strong>r.<br />

As <strong>the</strong> vertical rate <strong>of</strong> descent approaches <strong>the</strong> induced velocity, <strong>the</strong> vortices will not be<br />

swept away so much, and will begin to augment one ano<strong>the</strong>r. <strong>The</strong> airflow will recirculate,<br />

in a toroidal motion known as a vortex ring. This is shown in Figure 3.16. <strong>The</strong><br />

recirculation is increasing <strong>the</strong> inflow and so more collective pitch is needed to provide<br />

<strong>the</strong> same lift. <strong>The</strong> blade reaction will tilt back and more torque will be needed.<br />

Paradoxically, a helicopter needs more power to descend in <strong>the</strong> hover than it does<br />

to maintain height. Early helicopters having marginal power used low disc loading

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