Rotor track and balance improvements

Abstract

Vibration derived from the main rotor dynamics and imbalance causes premature wear to the aircraft components, and can cause pilot fatigue. While improvements have been made in rotor track and balance (RTB) techniques; there is room to enhance the quality of the recommended RTB adjustments. One aspect that limits the development of RTB algorithms is the difficulty in quantifying the performance of new algorithms. This is because there are limited data sets to work on, and no agreed upon metrics on which to measure RTB performance. This paper develops a methodology to simulate the vibration due to injecting a fault into the rotor system, and demonstrates metrics to evaluate the performance of a RTB algorithm. A new Bayes RTB method is evaluated against a standard least squares technique. In addition, a technique is presented to automate the selection of active adjustments.