Helicopter blades that can actively change shape mid-flight are moving from theory toward practical testing. Today’s rotor blades are passive—fixed shapes that cannot adapt to changing flight conditions. This forces designers to compromise between performance, fuel efficiency, and vibration control. The REACT project brings together three university research centres and helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland to develop the core technologies needed for active rotor blades: embedded power electronics, computational fluid dynamics models, and control algorithms. The team will build and test a model rotor, a wind-tunnel section of a full-scale blade with active elements, and an active damper that cancels vibration at its source inside the rotor hub. If successful, active rotors could cut helicopter vibration dramatically, improve fuel economy, and open up new performance capabilities. But the engineering challenges are severe—the electronics and software must survive extreme aerodynamic and vibratory loads while crossing the rotating joint between fuselage and rotor, and the system must be proven fail-safe. This is applied engineering research aimed squarely at a future flight-tested product, not fundamental science.
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The helicopter’s main rotor determines key aspects of the vehicle’s performance capability and operating economics. Next generation Active Rotor blade technologies, which introduce moving or shape changing elements into the rotor blade, offer a step change possibilities in capability over current ‘passive’ rotor blade designs. Helicopter vibration can also be significantly reduced by cancelling the vibration at its source in the rotor blade. The purpose of REACT (Rotor Embedded Actuation Control Tecnhonolgy) is therefore to explore technologies and capabilities that provide the necesary groundwork towards developing future generation flight trialed active rotor technology. In order to achieve this a consortium of expert University centres have teamed with AgustaWestland (helicopter designer and manufacturer with a world wide sales base). The programme is split into the following activity sections: • Enabling Technologies - Each of the University centres conducts research into key capability requirements as well as the development of design tools that will be used to progress Active Rotor designs. Involved are The University of Bristol (power electronics), University of Liverpool (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and the University of Leicester (controls and algorithms). • Active rotor system demonstrators (AgustaWestland) - These consist of a model rotor test, a wind tunnel test of a section of full scale blade incorporating an active rotor section and the design of a future generation full scale active rotor blade. The first two elements provide critical data, via experiment, that feeds into the full blade design that will untimately be flight tested via a future programme of work. • Development of an Active damper to reduce vibration, sourced at the rotor blade, within the rotor hub environment. The active rotor system needs drive novel and difficult solutions for electrical power transfer, signal transfer and software control systems, all of which need to operate reliably in a harsh helicopter environment with large aerodynamic and vibratory loads, and across rotating machinery (helicopter fuselage to rotor system.) There is a significant impact upon the design and manufacturing processes of the blade and the aircraft's flight control systems, and the durability and costs of maintaining the new systems must be viable. Additionally, the Active Rotor is obviously a critical helicopter system and must be proven to ‘fail safe’. AgustaWestland is therefore examining the manufacturing implications, operational capabilities, performance potential, flight safety, and control issues of the activated blade.
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