Aspects on Conceptual and Preliminary Helicopter Design

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is currently developing a multidisciplinary design framework for conventional and unconventional rotorcraft. This program is the result of the project EDEN (Evaluation and DEsign of Novel rotorcraft concepts), which is a cooperation of the Institute for Flight Systems, the Institute for Aerodynamics and Flow Technology and the Institute of Structures and Design. The complexity of rotorcraft design requires the development of several subject-specific tools. Here, the components are continuously refined and published to the project group. This Framework delivers a high level of modularity that makes the arrangement and testing of the process very flexible. The process starts with an empty workspace and the minimum input of payload mass, range, flight speed, number of rotor blades and a rotor configuration. The rotor configurations include also the unconventional types. The fundamental concept behind the layout of the tools inside the process is demonstrated especially the use of scaling and optimization loops. The implementation of more than one main rotor is in a special focus. Hence, the toolbox is dealing with different configurations and different mission requirements, the process itself can be called generic design.