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Written by an internationally recognized teacher and researcher, this book provides a thorough, modern treatment of the aerodynamic principles of helicopters and other rotating-wing vertical lift aircraft such as tilt rotors and autogiros. The text begins with a unique technical history of helicopter flight, and then covers basic methods of rotor aerodynamic analysis, and related issues associated with the performance of the helicopter and its aerodynamic design. It goes on to cover more advanced topics in helicopter aerodynamics, including airfoil flows, unsteady aerodynamics, dynamic stall, and rotor wakes, and rotor-airframe aerodynamic interactions, with final chapters on autogiros and advanced methods of helicopter aerodynamic analysis. Extensively illustrated throughout, each chapter includes a set of homework problems. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students, practising engineers, and researchers will welcome this thoroughly revised and updated text on rotating-wing aerodynamics.
List of contents
Preface to the second edition; Preface to the first edition; Acknowledgements; List of main symbols; 1. Introduction: a history of helicopter flight; 2. Fundamentals of rotor aerodynamics; 3. Blade element analysis; 4. Rotating blade motion; 5. Helicopter performance; 6. Aerodynamics design of helicopters; 7. Aerodynamics of rotor airfoils; 8. Unsteady airfoil behavior; 9. Dynamic stall; 10. Rotor wakes and blade tip vortices; 11. Rotor-airframe interaction aerodynamics; 12. Autogiros and gyroplanes; 13. Aerodynamics of wind turbines; 14. Computational methods for helicopter aerodynamics; Appendix; Index.
About the author
J. Gordon Leishman is the Minta Martin Chair of Engineering and Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a former aerodynamicist at Westland Helicopters and has written extensively on topics in helicopter aerodynamics. Leishman is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Technical Fellow of the American Helicopter Society. He is Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of the American Helicopter Society. He is also the author of The Helicopter: Thinking Forward, Looking Back (2007).
