Propeller Performance Measurement for Low Reynolds Number UAV Applications

Merchant, Monal Pankaj; Miller, L. Scott

doi:10.2514/6.2006-1127

Cited by 90 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The first step to this process is to define all the variables to be used. (Merchant, 2004) The Pi terms can be formed at this point, which are built up from the fundamental units.…”

Section: Unique Propeller Reynolds Umber Equationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Dynamic Propeller Testing at Low Reynolds Numbers

Gamble

Arena

2010

48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition

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“…The first step to this process is to define all the variables to be used. (Merchant, 2004) The Pi terms can be formed at this point, which are built up from the fundamental units.…”

Section: Unique Propeller Reynolds Umber Equationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Dynamic Propeller Testing at Low Reynolds Numbers

Gamble

Arena

2010

48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition

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“…The Hackett method yielded more correction at higher airspeeds and larger propeller diameters, but the method could not be validated and therefore further work was found to be necessary. Merchant and Miller (2006) performed dynamic tests on propellers in the 6 ≤ D ≤ 22 inch range. A test stand was constructed to record propeller performance parameters, where the thrust and torque were collected by a combined thrust/torque cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The coefficients of thrust, torque and propeller power, and the propeller efficiency are (Merchant and Miller, 2006):…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement of Static and Dynamic Performance Characteristics of Electric Propulsion Systems

Brezina

2013

51st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition

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Today's unmanned aerial vehicles are being utilized by numerous groups around the world for various missions. Most of the smaller vehicles that have been developed use commercially-off-the-shelf parts, and little information about the performance characteristics of the propulsion systems is available in the archival literature. In light of this, the aim of the present research was to determine the performance of various smallscale propellers in the 4.0 to 6.0 inch diameter range driven by an electric motor. An experimental test stand was designed and constructed in which the propeller/electric motor was mounted in a wind tunnel for both static and dynamic testing. Both static and dynamic results from the present experiment were compared to those from previous studies. For static testing, the coefficient of thrust, the coefficient of propeller power, and the overall efficiency, defined as the ratio of the propeller output power to the electrical input power, were plotted versus the propeller rotational speed. For dynamic testing, the rotational speed of the propeller was held constant at regular intervals while the freestream airspeed was increased from zero to the windmill state. The coefficient of thrust, the coefficient of power, the propeller efficiency and the overall efficiency were plotted versus the advance ratio for various rotational speeds. The thrust and torque were found to increase with rotational speed, propeller pitch and diameter, and decrease with airspeed. Using the present data and data from the archival and non-archival sources, it was found that the coefficient of thrust increases with propeller diameter for square iv propellers where D = P. The coefficient of thrust for a family of propellers (same manufacturer and application) was found to have a good correlation from static conditions to the windmill state. While the propeller efficiency was well correlated for this family of propellers, the goodness of fit parameter was improved by modifying the propeller efficiency with D/P.

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“…During the same time period that current tests were performed, 5 Merchant and Miller conducted tests on as many as 30 model airplane propellers ranging in diameter from 6 to 22 in, but only a subset of the measurements on seven propellers have been reported from that effort. 6,7 More recently Ol, et al 8 carried out measurements on many propellers aimed toward use on UAVs and made detailed comparisons with analysis, revealing important low Reynolds number effects. These recent measurements on small-scale propellers and the results reported here have all been motivated by the same interests in documenting the aerodynamic performance of small-scale propellers that are used in small UAVs and other low Reynolds number appliations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimum vertical ascent of an electric multicopter

Свердлов¹

2016

EJSI

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While much research has been carried out on propellers for full-scale aircraft, not much data exists on propellers applicable to the ever growing number of UAVs. Many of these UAVs use propellers that must operate in the low Reynolds number range of 50,000 to 100,000 based on the propeller chord at the 75% propeller-blade station. Tests were performed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to quantify the propeller efficiency at these conditions. In total, 79 propellers were tested and the majority fit in the 9-to 11-in diameter range. During the tests, the propeller speed (RPM) was fixed while changing the wind-tunnel speed to sweep over a range of advance ratios until reaching the windmill state (zero thrust). To examine Reynolds number effects, typically four RPM's were tested in the range 1,500 to 7,500 RPM depending on the propeller diameter. Propeller efficiencies varied greatly from a peak near 0.65 (for an efficient propeller) to near 0.28 (for an exceptionally poor propeller). Thus, these results indicate that proper propeller selection for UAVs can have a dramatic effect on aircraft performance.

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Propeller Performance Measurement for Low Reynolds Number UAV Applications

Cited by 90 publications

References 3 publications

Automated Dynamic Propeller Testing at Low Reynolds Numbers

Automated Dynamic Propeller Testing at Low Reynolds Numbers

Measurement of Static and Dynamic Performance Characteristics of Electric Propulsion Systems

Optimum vertical ascent of an electric multicopter

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