<p>Helicopter rotor blades always show a compromise between the demands for forward flight and hover. Many different techniques have been studied in the past to overcome this compromise by utilizing adaptivity within the blade design. This presentation&nbsp;presents a study regarding the structural design of such chord morphing rotor blades. It will start off with the reasoning, why chord morphing is of benefit for helicopter performance. It shows the performance benefits for long chord configurations in hover as well as the more beneficial configuration with shorter chord length in forward flight.&nbsp;In a second chapter the design of such a structure is being presented including a conceptual design as well as a design procedure, which covers the static as well as an aeroelastic design of the rotor blade. in a third part the manufacturing of a demonstrator for such a chord morphing rotor blade is presented including the manufacturing of an elastic skin as well as the supporting inner structure. The highlight of the presentation is a review of results from a&nbsp;whirl tower test&nbsp;conducted at a dedicated DLR facility&nbsp;as well as a review of a wind tunnel&nbsp;with the same specimen and a comparison of the results with simulations for model validation.</p>

Design and Testing of a Chord Morphing Rotor Blade for Helicopter Performance Improvement

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/SMASIS/SMASIS2021/volume/85499

ASME 2021 Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS2021)

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