The study of the biodynamic response of helicopter passengers and pilots, when excited by rotorcraft vibrations that are transmitted through the seat and, for the latter, the control inceptors, is of great importance in different areas of aircraft design. Handling qualities are affected by the proneness of the aircraft to give rise to adverse interactions, an unwanted quality that can be captured by the so-called biodynamic feedthrough. On the other hand, the transmissibility of vibrations, especially from the seat to the head, affects the comfort of pilots and passengers during flight. Detailed and parametrised multibody modelling of the human upper body can provide a strong base to support design decisions justified by a first-principles approach. In this work, a multibody model of the upper body is formed by connecting a previously developed detailed model of the arms to a similarly detailed model of the spine. The whole model can be adapted to a specific subject, identified by age, gender, weight and height. The spine model and the scaling procedure have been validated using the experimental results for seat to head transmissibility. The coupled spine-arms model is used to evaluate the biodynamic response in terms of involuntary motion induced on the control inceptors, including the related nonlinearities.

Helicopters are known to exhibit higher vibratory levels compared to fixed-wing aircraft. The consequences of vibrations depend on the affected helicopter component or subject. Specifically, pilots are in contact with several parts of the helicopter; vibrations can spoil the pilot-vehicle interaction. To evaluate the effects of vibration exposure on pilots, comfort levels resulting from whole-body vibration are computed. However, specific body parts and organs, e.g., hands, feet, and eyes are also adversely affected, with undesirable effects on piloting quality. Therefore, a detailed assessment is necessary for a more accurate estimation of pilot vibration exposure when comparing different configurations, tracking changes during design, and determining the safety of the flight envelope. A generalized assessment is presented by considering vibrations at the seat surface, hand-grip of controls, eyes, and feet. The suggested vibration measure includes comfort, handling, feet-contact, and vision in a single formulation. It is illustrated by coupling a high-fidelity biodynamic model of the pilot to a helicopter aeroservoelastic model in a comprehensive simulation environment. Using appropriate modeling techniques, vibration exposure of helicopter pilots could be evaluated during all stages of design, to achieve a more comfortable and safer flying environment.

The use of Lyapunov characteristic exponents to assess the stability of nonlinear, time-dependent mechanical systems is discussed. Specific attention is dedicated to methods capable of estimating the largest exponent without requiring the Jacobian matrix of the problem, which can be applied to time histories resulting from simulations performed with existing multibody solvers. Helicopter ground resonance is analyzed as the reference application. Improvements over the available literature are: the problem is formulated in physical coordinates, without eliminating periodicity through multiblade coordinates; the rotation of the blades is not linearized; the problem is modeled considering absolute positions and orientations of parts. The dynamic instability that arises at some angular velocities when the isotropy of the rotor is broken (e.g., caused by the failure of one lead-lag damper, a design test condition) is observed to evolve into a large amplitude limit cycle, where the usual Floquet–Lyapunov analysis of the linearized time-periodic simply predicts instability.

In this article, the results of a piloted flight simulator campaign aimed at measuring biomechanical performance indicators of a helicopter pilot performing complex, realistic tasks are presented. The upper limbs' motion and the activation of the main muscle groups of the left arm were measured during ship-deck landings, performed flying several helicopter configurations with sea conditions of variable intensity. The analysis of the results shows an increase in the muscle activity relative to the increase in task difficulty, in agreement with subjective ratings (Bedford workload scale). The study provides useful indications to improve the corresponding biomechanical simulations, as well as to characterize pilot's performance during specific tasks.

Stability analysis of complex, nonlinear dynamical systems is a challenge. The use of Lyapunov Characteristic Exponents through a Jacobian-less method is proposed as a means to identify the Maximum Lyapunov Characteristic Exponent, namely the fundamental stability indicator of a generic problem, solely from time series obtained through general-purpose multibody dynamics simulations of complex rotorcraft aeromechanics models. The method is first applied to a relatively simple scenario concerning the identification of ground resonance. Then, its application to more complex models is addressed by studying the aeroelastic stability and identifying the whirl flutter of the XV-15 tiltrotor using a comprehensive aeroelastic model.

An explicit cosimulation scheme is developed to study the coupling of smooth and nonsmooth systems using kinematic constraints. Using the force-displacement decomposition, the coupling constraints are formulated at the velocity level, to preserve consistency with the impulse-momentum equations for frictional contacts in the nonsmooth solver, which however potentially leads to instability of the explicit cosimulation. To improve the stability of the cosimulation without affecting the format of the coupling constraints, guidelines for the modification of the prescribed motion are developed following the spirit of Baumgarte’s stabilization technique and the characteristics of the proposed integration scheme, which prescribes a combination of position, velocity, and acceleration to the constrained bodies. Using modified inputs, the stability of the cosimulation is tested using a rigidly connected two-mass oscillator model, which shows clear improvement compared to that with unaltered inputs. The performances of the cosimulation with modified inputs are further illustrated using a double-pendulum system and a complex flexible multibody system coupled with a particle damper. It follows that cosimulation results well agree with those obtained using monolithic simulation or simplified models, verifying the explicit smooth/nonsmooth cosimulation. The results also show a higher efficiency of the explicit cosimulation scheme, which requires much less computational time to obtain similar results, compared to the implicit smooth/nonsmooth cosimulation.