CFD computation of in-plane propeller shaft loads

Abstract

A study has been performed to analyze the feasibility of predicting in-plane shaft loads (so-called 1P loads) of installed propellers using CFD. The A400M military transport aircraft has been used as case study. The results of the computations are compared to both wind tunnel and flight test data. For the flight test comparison the effect of propeller flexibility has been taken into account by means of a coupled CFD-CSM analysis. Nomenclature B 1P= 1P shaft bending moment C B1P = 1P shaft bending moment coefficient = B 1P /( n 2 D 5 )= 1P propeller moment n = propeller rotational speed (rps) = air density

Engineering Method to Estimate the Blade Loading of Propellers in Nonuniform Flow

“…11a), whereas the maximum change in load occurs with approximately a 15 deg lag in the full-blade CFD results, which is in line with findings in Refs. [36,38]. This delay is accurately captured by applying the unsteady correction to the quasi-steady result, and it indicates that it can be predominantly attributed to the response of the two-dimensional blade sections that experience an unsteady inflow.…”

“…For example, local disturbances, such as the propeller encountering a wake or vortex, have a negligible to a small effect on the mean propeller forces; whereas they do cause significant unsteady loads and noise [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Asymmetric inflow, such as a propeller at a nonzero angle of attack or a propeller operating in the upwash or downwash of a wing, only changes the propeller performance slightly but still leads to significant unsteady loads and nonnegligible in-plane forces [24,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Moreover, quasi-axisymmetric inflows covering a large part of the propeller disk, such as a swirling inflow to a wingtipmounted pusher-propeller or a boundary-layer inflow, have shown to alter the propeller efficiency [6,[43][44][45].…”

Validation and Comparison of RANS Propeller Modeling Methods for Tip-Mounted Applications

“…Therefore, this model was selected for the current research. The two-equation eddy viscosity k − ω model with shear stress transport correction [22] (k − ω SST) is often used for propeller simulations [23][24][25][26] and was therefore considered as well, although this model agreed poorly in terms of static pressure and axial velocity in the wingtip-vortex core in the research of Kim and Rhee [8]. In the current paper, a comparison is presented between these two turbulence models for the isolated propeller and wing configurations.…”

Aerodynamic Performance and Static Stability Characteristics of Aircraft with Tail-Mounted Propellers

“…7b. Because of the unsteady aerodynamics, there is a difference between the phase angle at which the disturbance is encountered and the phase angle at which the change in torque occurs [63,71,81]. Consequently, velocity component w introduces a side force, whereas v introduces a normal force, as depicted in Fig.…”