Overview
The main objective of the ACCUBLADE project, within the Green Rotorcraft Program was the development of a low cost and high accurate moulding process for the manufacturing of rotor blades incorporating an Active Gurney Flap mechanism that would contribute for greener rotorcraft performances with reduced fuel consumption and noise.
Funding
Results
Executive Summary:
One of the most challenging research areas, led by the Green Rotorcraft Consortium within the Clean Sky Program, was the development of Active Rotor Technologies like the Active Gurney Flap (AGF) system, which enabled a helicopter to operate with a reduced tip speed of its main rotor whilst preserving the current flight performance capabilities.
The validation of innovative AGF systems required the manufacturing and testing of small scaled model blades in wind tunnel tests before their implementation at full scale. The incorporation of the AGF mechanism into small scaled model rotor blades implied the need for a very accurate and robust processing of the model blades in order to allow the AGF mechanism to be accurately assembled to perform efficiently.
Due to the small dimensions of the model rotor blades, the dimensional requirements for the manufacturing are very tight, less than +/- 0,1mm on the aerodynamic profile, which is very difficult to achieve with the state-of-the-art prepreg technology.
In order to fulfil those tight tolerances for the manufacturing of the model blades with the AGF, not only must the mould be machined with high precision means, but the cavity design must also be defined with special consideration for minimizing any shape distortion that may appear during the process.
The general objective of the ACCUBLADE project was the development of a low cost and highly accurate moulding process for manufacturing rotorcraft model blades, incorporating an AGF mechanism that will be used for the assessment of functional performances in Wind Tunnel Tests.