Extension of Goldstein's circulation function for optimal rotors with hub

Abstract

The aerodynamic interaction or interference between rotor blades and hub body is usually very complicated, but some useful simplifications can be made by considering the hub with an infinite cylinder. Various attempts to find the optimum distribution of circulation by the lifting vortex lines method have been previously proposed to describe the blade interaction with the hub modeled by the infinite cylinder. In this case, the ideal distribution of bound circulation on the rotor blades is such that the shed vortex system in the hub-area is a set of helicoidal vortex sheets moving uniformly as if rigid, exactly as in the case where there is no influence of the streamtube deformations by the central hub-body. In the present investigation, we consider a more specific problem of the rotor-hub interaction where the initial flow streamtubes and the rotor slipstream submitted strong deformations at the nose-area of the semi-infinite hub.