BERP IV THE DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF AN ADVANCED ROTOR BLADE

The British Experimental Rotor Programme has been maturing new rotor technologies since 1975, and has provided advanced rotors for the Sea King, Lynx and AW101 aircraft. The BERP IV programme addressed high technical risk early, and focused on targets to improve performance, survivability and cost. A multi-disciplinary engineering/manufacturing team approach was used. Extensive use was made of simulation to develop the new rotor blade design in a ‘virtual’ environment, allowing the programme to be shortened compared to previous programmes. This paper reviews the processes and design features developed to satisfy the generic technical objectives applicable across a range of platform types. The technology was demonstrated on an AW101 and this paper covers the specific design features of the demonstrator blade and flight test results. The development of a production version of the demonstrator blade is summarised.