| Hinges are incorporated into helicopter blade design to reduce the high bending moments at the root, but result in a lag in the response time. With the advent of composite materials, there is an initiative to develop hingeless blades. Recent advances in active materials technology allow for a potential means of vibration and pitch angle control.; Helicopter rotor blade analysis is a complex subject that encompasses aerodynamics, structures and composite materials. The ability to control the coupling between deformation modes through the orientation of the fibers allows for the tailoring of helicopter blade dynamics. Piezoelectric fibers, which strain under the application of an electric field, can be embedded into the composite and allow for anisotropic actuation.; This thesis provides an aeroelastic analysis of a hingeless helicopter rotor blade with active fibers in hover. The analysis is limited to the case of constant cross-sectional properties and no cordwise offset between the elastic, mass, tension and aerodynamic axes. |
