Numerical Investigation of Effects of Airspeed and Rotational Speed on Quadrotor UAV Propeller Thrust Coefficient

Abstract

In this article, a numerical investigation was performed on a quadrotor UAV propeller with the aim of examining effects of airspeed and rotational speed on thrust coefficient, which is one of the most important parameters on propeller aerodynamic performance. In that purpose, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of an 11-inch propeller were carried out at different airspeeds and rotational speeds in vertical climbing flight condition. In order to have optimum number of mesh elements in computational domain, mesh independence analyses were also conducted. In conclusion, results of the analyses with k-ω SST turbulence model were shown that, increase in rotational speed was leaded to higher turbulent kinetic energy. Furthermore, higher rotational speeds also resulted in higher differences between numerical estimations and experimental data, but found to become more independent from airspeed.