The development of a GUI program for automated generating rotor blade airfoil performance table.

A user-friendly, Windows-based Graphic User Interface (GUI) program that automates the generation of the aerodynamic performance tables for comprehensive helicopter load analysis codes was developed. With this program, computational grids are automatically created for the given airfoil surface coordinates, and users can verify the grids immediately. In addition, the program’s post-processing feature can enable the real-time inspection of the interim results of the computation. The aerodynamic performance tables can be generated by performing automated aerodynamic analysis of the airfoil in various angles of attack and Mach numbers by using validated CFD code. The Mixed-Language technique was employed to combine the FORTRAN-based CFD codes to the C++-based GUI program without needing any transformation between these two languages. The MS Access was used to construct the data base of the aerodynamic tables. The real-time inputs of the analysis results of the ODBC Access data base make it easy to retrieve the aerodynamic tables. Of the entire range of the angle of attack (−180° to 180°), the CFD analysis is only performed in the significant angles depending on the Mach number. The aerodynamic data for the other angles were obtained by using an interpolation method; therefore, the tables could be generated quickly. Various aerodynamic information such as drag divergence Mach number and stall angle can be extracted from the computed results stored in the database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]