Wing-Propeller Interaction

Abstract

Paper describes the effect of the distributed electric propulsion system (DEP) on the aerodynamic characteristics of the airplane wing. Using CFD simulation is described the influence of the wake of the propeller on the wing for various ratios of the propeller diameter to the wing chord. Unlike the normal case of wing-propeller interaction, periodic boundary conditions are used, i.e. a rectangular wing with infinite span with propellers installed periodically its span is considered. A wind tunnel experiment will be used to verify the calculations. Propeller thrust is set to compensate for airplane drag in horizontal flight, i.e. equal to the wing segment drag, which is increased by the corresponding part of the expected drag of other parts of the airplane. The increase of the drag was determined by the aerodynamic design of a generic airplane with DEP. The benefit of the work are the input data usable for the conceptual design of the airplane wing with DEP.