Surrogate based design optimisation of composite aerofoil cross-section for helicopter vibration reduction

Design optimisation of a helicopter rotor blade is performed. The objective is to reduce helicopter vibration and constraints are put on frequencies and aeroelastic stability. The ply angles of the D-spar and skin of the composite rotor blade with NACA 0015 aerofoil section are considered as design variables. Polynomial response surfaces and space filling experimental designs are used to generate surrogate models of the objective function with respect to cross-section properties. The stacking sequence corresponding to the optimal cross-section is found using a real-coded genetic algorithm. Ply angle discretisation of 1 degrees, 15 degrees, 30 degrees and 45 degrees are used. The mean value of the objective function is used to find the optimal blade designs and the resulting designs are tested for variance. The optimal designs show a vibration reduction of 26% to 33% from the baseline design. A substantial reduction in vibration and an aeroelastically stable blade is obtained even after accounting for composite material uncertainty.