• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.1599-1606
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• 2011

It is possible to study the load characteristics of full-scale hingeless rotor with the changing of physical smallscaled configurations such as rectangular and paddle blades, and metal and composite hubs. In this study, a static test, and a ground and wind-tunnel test were carried out using small-scale rotor models. The static test was carried out to confirm structural stiffness, characteristics of inertia, natural frequency, and damping ratio of rotors, and the ground and wind-tunnel test was carried out to confirm the stability and aerodynamic characteristics under hovering and forward flight conditions. According to the test results, the vertical load in the case of a combination of a small composite hub with paddle blades was higher than that in the case of a metal hub with paddle blades at same condition. Further, it was confirmed that the restraint of the combination of composite hub can be more flexible than the metal hub for the motion of paddle blades.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2003

In this work, a closed-form analysis is performed for the structural response of coupled composite blades with multi-cell sections. The analytical model includes the effects of shell wall thickness, transverse shear, torsion warping and constrained warping. The mixed beam approach based on Reissner's semi-complementary energy functional is used to derive the beam force-displacement relations. The theory is validated against experimental test data and other analytical results for coupled composite beams and blades with single-cell box-sections and two-cell airfoils. Correlation of the present method with experimental results and detailed finite element results is found to be very good.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2010

Fatigue properties of composite materials are extremely important to design durable and reliable helicopter rotor blades. However, it is very difficult to apply conventional fatigue test loads in short period. Therefore, accelerating test speed and facilitating spectrum load realization are required. In this study, we have developed a fatigue testing method that uses a resonance of simply supported beam type blade specimen. This test consists in exciting the blade specimen with a frequency that corresponds to its natural frequency. In that case, the test specimen similar to a beam fixed between two pivot points starts vibrating and is significantly deformed. Resonant fatigue tests were performed by changing exciting vertical amplitude and frequency, and S-N curves of each composite materials were successfully obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.634-641
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• 2009

In this work, the behavior of vibratory hub loads induced due to the uncertainties of composite material properties for each of the participating rotor blades is investigated. The random material properties of composites available from the existing experimental data are processed by using the Monte-Carlo simulation technique to obtain the stochastic distribution of sectional stiffnesses of composite blades. The coefficients of variation (standard deviation divided by the mean) obtained from the sectional stiffness constants are used as an input to the comprehensive aeroelastic analysis code that can evaluate the hub loads of a rotor system. It is found that the uncertainty effects of composite material properties inevitably bring a dissimilarity to the rotor system. The influence of hub vibration response with respect to the individual stiffness (flatwise bending, chordwise bending and torsion) changes is also identified.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.215-218
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• 1999

A general structural model, which is an extension of the Vlassov theory, is developed for the analysis of composite rotor blades with elastic couplings. A comprehensive analysis applicable to both thick-and thin-walled composite beams, which can have either open- or closed profile is formulated. The theory accounts for the effects of elastic couplings, shell wall thickness, and transverse shear deformations. A semi-complementary energy functional is used to account for the shear stress distribution in the shell wall. The bending and torsion related warpings and the shear correction factors are obtained in closed form as part of the analysis. The resulting first order shear deformation theory describes the beam kinematics in terms of the axial, flap and lag bending, flap and lag shear, torsion and torsion-warping deformations. The theory is validated against experimental results for various cross-section beams with elastic couplings.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.156-162
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• 2008

The static aeroelastic analysis of composite hingeless rotor blades in hover was performed using free-wake method. Large deflection beam theory was applied to analyze blade motions as a one-dimension beam. Anisotropic beam theory was applied to perform a cross-sectional analysis for composite rotor blades. Aerodynamic loads were calculated through a three-dimensional aerodynamic model which is based on the unsteady vortex lattice method. The wake geometry in hover was described using a time-marching free-wake method. Numerical results of the steady-state deflections for the composite hingeless rotor blades were presented and compared with those results based on two-dimensional quasi-steady strip theory and prescribed wake method. It was shown that wakes affect the steady-state deflections.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.63-68
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• 2012

This paper deals with the aerodynamic analysis and structural test under estimated loading condition for small composite blade, which is utilized in dual rotor wind turbine system. Firstly, the front and rear blades of dual rotor wind turbine system were modeled using reverse engineering method. And using finite volume method, the aerodynamic forces were analyzed at the rated and cutout wind speed to identify the pressure distribution on blades. And then, the full scale structural tests were conducted according to load and strength based methodology in IEC 61400-2 to identify the structural integrity of composite blade.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.98-105
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• 2005

This paper presents the result of the aeroelastic stability test of the small-scaled hingeless hub system with composite paddle blades in hover and forward flight conditions. Excitation tests of hingeless hub system installed in GSRTS(General Small-scale Rotor Test System) at KARI(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) were carried out to get lead-lag damping ratio of blades with flexures as hub flexure. MBA(Moving Block Analysis) technique was used for the estimation of lead-lag damping ratio. First, blades with metal flexures, then with composite flexures of the same dynamic properties of rotor system as metal one were tested. Tests were done on the ground and in the wind tunnel according to the test conditions of hover and forward flight, respectively. Composite flexures were found to have better damping characteristics over metal ones in the non-rotating vibration test, and it was confirmed that the use of composite flexures would give observable improvement in aeroelastic stability compared to metal ones in all test conditions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.267-281
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• 2021

Bending-twisting coupling induced in big composite wind turbine blades is one of the passive control mechanisms which is exploited to mitigate loads incurred due to deformation of the blades. In the present study, flutter characteristics of bend-twist coupled blades, designed for load alleviation in wind turbine systems, are investigated by time-domain analysis. For this purpose, a baseline full GFRP blade, a bend-twist coupled full GFRP blade, and a hybrid GFRP and CFRP bend-twist coupled blade is designed for load reduction purpose for a 5 MW wind turbine model that is set up in the wind turbine multi-body dynamic code PHATAS. For the study of flutter characteristics of the blades, an over-speed analysis of the wind turbine system is performed without using any blade control and applying slowly increasing wind velocity. A detailed procedure of obtaining the flutter wind and rotational speeds from the time responses of the rotational speed of the rotor, flapwise and torsional deformation of the blade tip, and angle of attack and lift coefficient of the tip section of the blade is explained. Results show that flutter wind and rotational speeds of bend-twist coupled blades are lower than the flutter wind and rotational speeds of the baseline blade mainly due to the kinematic coupling between the bending and torsional deformation in bend-twist coupled blades.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.217-228
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• 2004

This paper presents the rotating test techniques and the results of the roating test of the small-scaled hingeless rotor system with composite paddle blades in hover and forward flight conditions. The small-scaled rotor system was designed using froude-scaled properties of full scale rotor system. Metal flexures and composite flexures were made as hub flexures by the same dynamic properties of rotor system. The rotating tests of hingeless rotor system installed in GSRTS at KARI were carried out to get lead-lag damping ratios and aerodynamic loads of the hingeless rotor system. MBA(Moving Block Analysis) technique was used for the estimation of lead-lag damping ratio. 6-components balance was installed between hub and main shaft and straingauges on blades were instrumented for the measurements of aerodynamic loads of rotor system. Tests were performed on the ground and in the wind tunnel according to the test conditions of hover and forward flight, respectively.