A CFD Simulation on the Performance of Slotted Propeller Design for Various Airfoil Configurations

Authors

  • Wan Mazlina Wan Mohamed Malaysia Institute of Transport (MITRANS), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
  • Nirresh Prabu Ravindran School of Aerospace Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
  • Parvathy Rajendran Faculty of Engineering & Computing, First City University College, Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37934/cfdl.13.3.4357

Keywords:

APC Slow Flyer, Slotted propeller, groove, CFD, blade

Abstract

The usage of slots has gained renewed interest in aerospace, particularly on propeller design. Most of the works have focused on improving the aerodynamic performance and efficiency. Modern research on propeller design aims to design propellers with high thrust performance under low torque conditions without any weight penalty. Although research on slotted design has been done before, none has been done to understand its impact on different airfoils on the propeller blade. Thus, this study aims to provide extensive research on slotted propeller design with various airfoil of different properties such as high Reynolds number, low Reynolds number, symmetrical, asymmetrical high lift, and low drag. This work has been investigated using computational fluid dynamics method to predict propeller performance for a small-scale propeller. The slotted blade designs' performance is presented in terms of thrust coefficient, power coefficient, efficiency, and thrust to power ratio. Here, the slotted APC Slow Flyer propeller blade's performance has been investigated for diverse types of airfoils with the shape and position of the slot is fixed which is a square-shaped at 62.5% of the chord length. The flow simulations are performed through three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic software (ANSYS Fluent) to determine the thrust coefficient, power coefficient, efficiency, and thrust to power ratio measured in advancing flow conditions. Findings show that the slotted propeller design composed of symmetrical, high Reynolds number, high lift airfoils can benefit the most with slots' implementation. These improvements were 19.49%, 69.13%, 53.57% and 111.06% in terms of thrust, power, efficiency and trust to power ratio respectively.

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Published

2021-03-23

How to Cite

Mohamed, W. M. W. ., Ravindran, N. P. ., & Rajendran, P. (2021). A CFD Simulation on the Performance of Slotted Propeller Design for Various Airfoil Configurations. CFD Letters, 13(3), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.37934/cfdl.13.3.4357
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