Rotor performance enhancement through blade surging

Abstract

This short paper introduces a new concept of rotor where the blades undergo a periodic surging motion in the rotor disk plane. It is shown that the unsteady actuation induces aerodynamic phenomenon that can enhance both rotor thrust and efficiency, depending on the amplitude and frequency of actuation. In particular, the increase in aerodynamic performance is found to correlate with the development of a large scale leading edge vortex. Accordingly, the optimal frequency is found to correlate with the formation time of this vortex.