IMPLEMENTATION OF A NUMERICAL MODEL FOR THE CYCLOIDAL ROTOR AERODYNAMICS

The paper presents a numerical model and calculations of the aerodynamics of a cycloidal rotor. The cycloidal rotor is a rotor consisting of blades located parallel to the rotor axis, and in addition to rotation, they perform a swing around their own axis, which allows the blade to maintain positive angles of attack and generate lift force in both its upper and lower positions. The numerical model of the flow around the rotor was based on computational fluid dynamics methods and described by the viscous, turbulent incompressible flow of air through the rotor. Discretization of the transfer equations was carried out using the control volume method on three-dimensional meshes with hexahedral cells, while the movement of the blades was taken into account using the sliding mesh method. Validation of the model showed good agreement with known experimental data. Scaling the problem parameters confirmed the self-similarity of the dimensionless characteristics of the rotor in the studied range of Reynolds numbers.