Simulation of a rotor in forward flight to characterize helicopter wake signature and encounter severity
(2025) CEAS Aeronautical Journal — (2026)
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- Abstract
- The development of safe and efficient air traffic separation policies relies on the accurate quantification of the wake turbulence generated by aircraft and rotor-craft, and on the accurate understanding of the upset experienced by a follower aircraft or rotorcraft if encountering such wakes. To date, most research on wake turbulence has focused exclusively on fixed-wing aircraft. To address the existing gap in rotorcraft-specific studies, this paper first presents Large Eddy Simulations of the wake produced by a helicopter rotor in forward flight, performed using the Vortex Particle-Mesh method coupled with a multi-body solver. The effect of the airspeed is investigated, from a high value of 100 kt to a low value of 12.5 kt. For each case, the wake is characterized at equivalent dimensionless ages, and the wake-induced hazard produced on a follower fixed-wing reference aircraft is quantified using the rolling moment coefficient (RMC) metric. At low airspeeds, the wake departs from the rolled-up wake configuration typical of fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft flying at high airspeed, exhibiting increased vortex spacing and higher turbulence levels. The inverse proportionality between flight speed and vortex circulation is also shown to break down; the RMC value saturates, and it also rapidly decreases downstream. In a second scenario, the rotorcraft is 1
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Querinjean, G., Colognesi, V., Duponcheel, M., Poncelet, G., Caprace, D.-G., Chatelain, P., & Winckelmans, G. (2025). Simulation of a rotor in forward flight to characterize helicopter wake signature and encounter severity. CEAS Aeronautical Journal. Published. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13272-026-00943-5 (Original work published 2026)