TY - GEN
T1 - Computational study of a small rotor at hover using CFD and UVLM
AU - Andrés, Pérez G.
AU - Lopez, Omar
AU - Poroseva, Svetlana V.
AU - Escobar, Jaime A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the ’Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación’ (COL-CIENCIAS) and its program to sponsor Ph.D. students in Colombia; also, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of New Mexico, in U.S.A. where the first author spent a year working on the project. Computations were conducted using high-performance facilities at Universidad de los Andes and the Center for Advanced Research Computing at the University of New Mexico. We would alos like to express our gratitude to Ms. Laura Juliana Suárez Collazos for her valuable contribution in this investigation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Performance of small rotors is a subject of interest due to increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In the present paper, numerical simulations of a small rotor commonly used in quadcopters were performed in hover flight. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method (UVLM) were used and compared. CFD simulations were conducted with the commercial software Fluent ANSYS v17 using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) model. In UVLM, a model based on a viscosity dependent growth of the core of the tip vortex was used to account for viscous effects. The wake structure, pressure coefficient distribution on the rotor surface, thrust and torque coefficients obtained by different methods are compared in the paper. Results from flight tests are used to validate thrust and torque predictions. The difference in the prediction of the thrust coefficient between the computational methods is less than 9%. Both methods overestimate the thrust by 3% and 12% for CFD and UVLM respectively with respect to the flight test results.
AB - Performance of small rotors is a subject of interest due to increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In the present paper, numerical simulations of a small rotor commonly used in quadcopters were performed in hover flight. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method (UVLM) were used and compared. CFD simulations were conducted with the commercial software Fluent ANSYS v17 using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) model. In UVLM, a model based on a viscosity dependent growth of the core of the tip vortex was used to account for viscous effects. The wake structure, pressure coefficient distribution on the rotor surface, thrust and torque coefficients obtained by different methods are compared in the paper. Results from flight tests are used to validate thrust and torque predictions. The difference in the prediction of the thrust coefficient between the computational methods is less than 9%. Both methods overestimate the thrust by 3% and 12% for CFD and UVLM respectively with respect to the flight test results.
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U2 - 10.2514/6.2019-0597
DO - 10.2514/6.2019-0597
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85083942962
SN - 9781624105784
T3 - AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum
BT - AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum
PB - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA
T2 - AIAA Scitech Forum, 2019
Y2 - 7 January 2019 through 11 January 2019
ER -