During recent years a new vortex model of the unsteady
aerodynamics of a hovering rotor or a rotor in axial
flight, named Temura, has been
developed in the Technion. This model has succeeded
in describing various phenomena of rotor dynamics.
In the present paper Temura is used
in order to develop a model which describes the
blades’ responses to harmonic variations of their
pitch angles. This model includes unsteady
influences of trailing and shed vortices, together
with unsteady geometric effects which represent a
special capability of Temura. The
model is general and can be applied to any number of
blades and arbitrary differences between the pitch
angle variations of different blades. The
application of the model to analyse cases of
collective harmonic pitch variations and
differential harmonic pitch variations is presented.
Numerical results of the new model are compared with
experimental results from the literature and good
agreement is shown.