Rotor
As part of a group of 4, I designed and manufactured the rotor blade tilt mechanism for our moving helicopter sculpture. This mechanism is designed to display the range of motion of a helicopter’s blades. It features a swash plate mechanism which can be tilted to produce a varied blade pitch at different points in the rotation. This is how a helicopter is controlled, since the pitch of the blades affects the angle of attack and thus the amount of lift produced.
The swash plate is the stacked mechanism where all the control rods attach. The bottom control rods change the angle of the entire swash plate assembly through the bottom portion which does not rotate. The upper swash plate is housed in the lower portion with a bearing as well as a spherical bearing on the main rotor shaft to keep it centered. It has two control rods on top, allowing it to change the angle of each blade independently, as well as a drive link which locks rotation between the upper swash plate and the main rotor shaft. This mechanism can change the tilt of both blades equally by lifting the swash plate up with no angle, or change them dynamically as they rotate by changing the angle of the swash plate. For the purpose of our demonstration model, we have this mechanism driven by a cam track at the bottom which moves the bottom control rods up and down while the main rotor is either spinning or stationary.
The video below shows the cam actuated control rods changing the swash plate angle, tilting the blades while the rotor is stationary:
With copious issues with parts purchasing, composite molds failing, and lack of time to test and iterate, the final product didn’t turn out how we wanted it to. Nonetheless, it was able to display the core function of the rotor mechanism.
Team Members: Aayush Jindal, Chris Fox, Zirui Wang