LIBRARY   ROTORCRAFT PROJECTS
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CDI's expert staff has been providing high quality, cost effective engineering services and state-of-the-art technical rotorcraft solutions to government and industry for over twenty-five years. This page contains a list of more recent projects.


SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
  • BROWNOUT - Stand alone/modular software that provides a physics-based model of visual "brownout" rendered directly in flight simulation software when rotorcraft land in sand/dust conditions (for U.S. Army) - read more...
  • MAST - Multiple Aircraft Simulation Tool - Stand alone/modular software that enables real-time flight simulation of multiple aircraft with wake interactions (for NASA and the U.S. Navy) - read more...
  • VLA - PC-based, Visual Landing Aid software for the design of shipboard lighting systems to faciliate rotorcraft landings at sea (for U.S. Navy)
  • CHARM - Stand alone/modular software that provides unique capabilties in rotorcraft aerodynamic and acoustic modeling (originally for Boeing and NASA) - read more...
  • EHPIC-HERO - Rotor blade design software utilizing a unique "influence coefficient" method for fast, accurate performance optimization (originally for NASA) - read more...
  • LDTRAN - Analysis software for predicting entrainment and transport of hazardous biological/chemical agents by rotorwash (for U.S. Army) - read more...
  • VorTRAN-M - First-principles Eulerian vorticity transport wake module that allows capture of the true temporal and spatial structure of the rotor wake when coupled to Eulerian and Lagrangian CFD tools - read more...

HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
  • SMART TABS - Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuated tabs that allow tuning of rotor blade aerodynamics in-flight for tracking, survivability, performance enhancement and noise reduction (for U.S. Army & Navy) - read more...
  • WIRELESS ROTOR INSTRUMENTATION SYSTEM - Distributed accelerometer sensors measure blade deflections and applied loads in flight (for U.S. Navy)
  • PASSIVE TILTROTOR ICE DETECTION SYSTEM - Infers tiltrotor ice accretion in flight by analyzing performance changes relative to pilot control positions (for U.S. Navy)

ROTOR BLADE DESIGN PROJECTS
  • S-61 MAIN ROTOR BLADE - Redesign of the S-61 main rotor blade with Carson Helicopters yielded a 2000 lb increase in hover gross lift and a 15 knot increase in cruise speed at altitude. New blades are currently (2006) being implemented on the Presidential Helicopter.
  • V-22 RECONFIGURABLE ROTOR BLADE (RRB) - Design of next generation V-22 rotor blades that will reconfigure themselves in flight for improved performance in hover and airplane mode (for Boeing and U.S. Navy) - view a poster of this project...
  • RAH-66 COMANCHE ROTOR BLADE - Performed by Sikorsky Aircraft, using in part CDI's EHPIC-HERO software.
  • AARP AH-64 APACHE ROTOR BLADE - Performed by Boeing Mesa, using in part CDI's EHPIC-HERO software.
  • OPTIMUM TWIST ROTOR BLADES - Optimal twist distributions for tiltrotor and conventional rotorcraft blades - U.S. Patent 6,497,385 B1.
  • QUIET UAV PROPELLERS - Quiet UAV propeller designs (for U.S. Navy and InSitu Corp.)

AIRCRAFT DESIGN
  • SCHIEBEL S-100 CAMCOPTER DESIGN - Main rotor/tail rotor design
  • COAXIAL/DUCTED ROTOR UAV DESIGN - Coaxial rotor design for a ducted UAV (for UTRI)

ENGINEERING SERVICES
  • AERODYNAMIC ANALYSIS of the YSH-60/VTDP PUSHER PROP - Analysis of interaction/ interference effects of rotor wake/fuselage/wing of the YSH-60/VTDP Pusher Prop compund aircraft (for Piasecki Aircraft)
  • VDTR HANDLING QUALITIES ASSESSMENT - CDI evaluated the handling qualities of Sikorsky Aircraft's Variable Diameter Tilt Rotor (VDTR) concept using our CHARM software and a modified version of the NASA/LaRCsim tiltrotor flight simulator (for Sikorsky Aircraft)
  • JETTISON ANALYSIS - CDI used in-house flight simulation software and the CHARM wake module to determine the trajectory of objects jettisoned from Sikorsky rotorcraft (for Sikorsky Aircraft)
  • BVI NOISE MITIGATION USING SMA-DRIVEN FLAPS - Using our CHARM/WOPWOP analysis, CDI engineers identified an on-board flap system that can be deployed during landing to reduce BVI noise by a factor of two. This prediction was then validated through wind tunnel testing in the Ames Research Center 7' x 10' Wind Tunnel - view a poster of this project...
  • TILTROTOR PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT AND BVI NOISE REDUCTION - CDI used our CHARM/WOPWOP analysis to identify on-board flap systems that could improve tiltrotor performance and reduce BVI noise through in flight adjustment (for the U.S. Navy and NASA)
  • RAH-66 COMANCHE EMPENNAGE TEST DATA REDUCTION - CDI performed data reduction for a Comanche empennage loads test (for Sikorsky Aircraft)


More rotorcraft projects...
MAST is a physics-based analysis enabling high-fidelity, real-time flight simulation of multiple aircraft and their wakes.
Multi-Aircraft
The VorTran-M wake module is a first-principles Eulerian vorticity transport wake module that provides an unprecedented ability to capture the true temporal and spatial structure of the rotor wake when coupled to a wide range of CFD (both Eulerian and Lagrangian) tools.
VorTran-M
A cross-platform design toolkit with open 3D graphics standards VRML/X3D for supporting Visual Landing Aid (VLA) design and evaluation activity has been developed for the Navy.
Visual Landing Aid
A critical operational problem for Army rotorcraft is 'brownout' caused by excessive dust and debris kicked up by helicopter rotorwash during take-off and landing. Fast, physics-based models for design and simulation applications are under development at CDI.
Brownout
A novel approach for providing one-per-rev vibration reduction using collections of discrete active tab devices has recently been completed under an Army-sponsored Phase II SBIR program.
Tracking Tabs
More projects in aerospace and other disciplines...