Aerodynamic uncertainty quantification for tiltrotor aircraft

Yuan, Y. , Thomson, D. and Anderson, D. (2022) Aerodynamic uncertainty quantification for tiltrotor aircraft. Aerospace, 9(5), 271. (doi: 10.3390/aerospace9050271)

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Abstract

The tiltrotor has unique flight dynamics due to the aerodynamic interference characteristics. Multiple aerodynamics calculation approaches, such as the CFD method, are utilised to characterise this feature. The calculation process is usually time-consuming, and the obtained results are generally varied from each other. Thus, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) method will be utilised in this research to identify the aerodynamic inaccuracy effect on the handling qualities of the tiltrotor aircraft. The study aims to quantify the influence of the aerodynamic interference on the tiltrotor flight dynamics in different flight states, such as forward speeds and nacelle tilting angles, which can guide the flight dynamics modelling simplification to improve the simulation efficiency. Therefore, uncertainty identification and full factorial numerical integration (FFNI) methods are introduced to scale these aerodynamic uncertainties. The eigenvalue and bandwidth and phase delay requirements are presented as the failure criteria. The UQ calculation indicates that the uncertainties of the aerodynamic calculation significantly affect the handling quality ratings in two flight ranges: the helicopter mode and the conversion and aeroplane modes with higher forward speed (close to the conversion envelope). Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the mechanism behind these influences. The results demonstrate that aerodynamics affect the pitching attitude, the pitching damping, and the velocity and incidence stability derivatives. However, the effects of the velocity stability and the incidence stability are the reason causing the handling qualities’ degradation in the helicopter mode and high-speed mode, respectively.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Thomson, Dr Douglas and Yuan, Dr Ye and Anderson, Dr David
Creator Roles:
Yuan, Y.Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Visualization
Thomson, D.Validation, Formal analysis, Writing – review and editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition
Anderson, D.Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review and editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition
Authors: Yuan, Y., Thomson, D., and Anderson, D.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Autonomous Systems and Connectivity
Journal Name:Aerospace
Publisher:MDPI
ISSN:2226-4310
ISSN (Online):2226-4310
Published Online:18 May 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 The Authors
First Published:First published in Aerospace 9(5): 271
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
302201MENtOR: Methods and Experiments for NOvel RotorcraftGeorge BarakosEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)EP/S013814/1ENG - Autonomous Systems & Connectivity