New Capabilities in Version 7.0 of the Helios Rotorcraft Simulation Code

Speaker: Andrew Wissink, US Army Aviation Development Directorate AFDD
April 20, 2017

Presentation

Abstract

This talk will discuss new capabilities that appear in the latest release of Helios, the Army's high-fidelity CFD/CSD rotorcraft simulation code. We will discuss the new mStrand strand grid generation and solver, our first production release of a strand-based solver. We will then discuss the addition of two new unstructured near-body solvers—NASA's FUN3D and CREATE-AV Kestrel's kCFD. Along with the new strand solver and existing support for NASA's OVERFLOW structured solver and the University of Wyoming's NSU3D unstructured solver, Helios now supports five total near-body solver options for practicing engineers to utilize. The third important new addition to Helios is specification of a body hierarchy with frames and motion definitions through updates to the MELODI interface. This facilitates more seamless coupling with rotorcraft comprehensive analysis codes like RCAS, enabling more complex rotor configurations to be simulated, including tight coupling maneuver. The body hierarchy, frames, and motion specifications are facilitated by a newly designed GUI. Example application of these capabilities will be presented.

Biography

Andrew Wissink works for the US Army Aerodynamics Development Directorate located at NASA Ames Research Center. He has participated in the development of the Helios code since he joined the Army in 2006. Before that he worked at Lawrence Livermore National Lab from 1999-2006 and at NASA Ames from 1996-1999. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1997.

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