Multibody Dynamics Simulation and Experimental Investigation of a Model-Scale Tiltrotor

The objective of this investigation is to illustrate the steps involved in developing a multibody dynamics analytical model to simulate the aeroelastic stability and blade loading of a soft-inplane tiltrotor wind tunnel model and to correlate those simulations with experimental data. Development of soft-inplane tiltrotor technology is beneficial for providing viable lightweight hub design options for future heavy lift transport rotorcraft application. Experimental verification of such advanced configurations using either subscale models in wind tunnels or full-scale flight testing is becoming prohibitively expensive. Advanced modeling and simulation of complex tiltrotor hub configurations using multibody dynamics analyses offers an alternative to such expensive experimental verifications. Comprehensive rotorcraft-oriented multibody analyses enable the modeling and simulation of rotor hub systems to a level of detail that allows the complex kinematics and nonlinear effects associated with rotor hub control systems and drive train free play to be considered. The influence of these and other nonlinear effects on the aeromechanical behavior of a tiltrotor model is examined in this study.