ECCOMAS 2024

Multi-Fidelity Modelling Strategy of Propeller for Interactional Aerodynamics

  • Li, Zhuoneng (University of Southampton)
  • Maltsev, Vadim (University of Southampton)
  • Modarres, Amir (University of Southampton)
  • Da Ronch, Andrea (University of Southampton)

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The aerodynamic performance of the wing is heavily influenced by the wash of propeller's slipstream. Aiming for the fast simulation of the interactional aerodynamics of propeller wing system, rapid computational fluid dynamics (CFD), low to medium fidelity, methods are often employed at early design stage. The propeller blade geometry is defined by various parameters along its radial direction, such as the chord, sweep and twist. This level of detail is relevant in high-fidelity CFD simulation, however, in rapid CFD simulation, it is not clear whether or how these parameters impact the prediction for the propeller performance and its aerodynamic interaction with the wing. Additionally, the use of the Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) to model the propeller blade requires the tabulated aerodynamic coefficient for each aerofoil section, which increases the complexity of workflow for rapid CFD. To investigate these problems, the current research adopts an approximated modelling strategy for the propeller blade using surface panels/lifting lines with a generic aerodynamic table. The viscous Vortex Particle Method (VPM) is used for the propeller wake and wing wake. A clean wing, an isolated beaver propeller and wing mounted propeller are identified as the set of benchmark test cases of increasing complexity, for which high fidelity data from experimental measurements are available for comparison. In-house CFD simulation is also carried out in addition to experiment data. The main objective of the current work is to develop guidelines for propeller modelling in rapidly predicting interactional aerodynamic effects that dominates the propeller wing system and accelerate/simplify the workflow. The final conference manuscript and the conference presentation will contain an appreciation of the modeling challenges for test cases of increasing complexity and interactional aerodynamics, and a comparative study quantifying the trade-off between computing costs and prediction fidelity for several aerodynamic methods. Part of current work is shown in Figures, where an isolated propeller is simulated using multi fidelity modelling methods. The work is well underway but results included herein are limited due to space constraints.