Analysis of the vibration response of a helicopter blade with piezoelectric sensors

• Grant number: 11/01056-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2011
• End date: December 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Aerospace Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Flávio Donizeti Marques
• Grantee: Ivan Orquiza
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Recent requirements in the aeronautics field, including higher energetic efficiency, lower external and internal noise levels, in addition to reliability and safety, not only demand an increasing optimization of the structural project as it also leads to the emergence of new solutions for these problems. The need to reduce vibration in helicopter comes from its emergence, and different effective methods were created for this purpose, as the inclusion of springs and dampers, pendulum absorbers and dynamic vibration antiresonant isolators (DAVI). However, as the operating speed of the helicopter increases, the vibration problem gets worse. Thus, the emergence of active control methods, which don't aim to dampen vibrations like passive methods, but to eliminate them, has played an important role, and research in this application line has expanded rapidly. It should be emphasized that in the development of these researches, smart materials are of great importance, because their reduced size and format diversification provide weight savings and they enable a smooth integration into the structure, as in so-called smart structures, which have sensors and actuators highly distributed integrated with control logic. In this context, it's a precondition for any control technique, active or passive, and even to structure optimization, that one has a representative model of the rotor, the main source of vibration of the helicopter. This project aims to computationally analyze the response of a helicopter blade, and build a scale model to compare the results and to validate the model used.