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In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number

This study focused on the in-hover aerodynamics of a small rotor with a thin circular-arc airfoil and a convex structure at a low Reynolds number. The method combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with the blade element momentum theory (BEMT). The former was used for studying the two-dimensiona...

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Autores principales: Lei, Yao, Wang, Jie, Li, Yazhou, Gao, Qingjia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10051304/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36984947
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030540
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author Lei, Yao
Wang, Jie
Li, Yazhou
Gao, Qingjia
author_facet Lei, Yao
Wang, Jie
Li, Yazhou
Gao, Qingjia
author_sort Lei, Yao
collection PubMed
description This study focused on the in-hover aerodynamics of a small rotor with a thin circular-arc airfoil and a convex structure at a low Reynolds number. The method combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with the blade element momentum theory (BEMT). The former was used for studying the two-dimensional parametric aerodynamics of the airfoil at a low Reynolds number and the latter was used for the prediction of the rotor’s hover performance. A novel thin circular-arc airfoil with a convex structure with a high aerodynamic performance, high structural strength, light weight and easy manufacturing process is presented in this paper. A convex curve on the upper surface was adopted to increase the thickness of the airfoil at partial chord, and a stiffener in the airfoil was installed to improve the structural strength of rotor span-wise. The aerodynamic performance of the airfoil was numerically simulated by the two-dimensional steady and incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The in-hover performance of the rotor for small-scale vehicles was predicted by an improved version of the blade element momentum theory (BEMT). Finally, a carbon-fiber rotor with the presented airfoil was manufactured that had a diameter of 40 cm and a pitch of 6.2 inches. The analysis results were verified by experiments. It was shown that the maximum calculation errors were below 6%. The improved BEMT can be used in the analysis of in-hover micro-rotor aerodynamics at low Reynolds numbers.
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spelling pubmed-100513042023-03-30 In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number Lei, Yao Wang, Jie Li, Yazhou Gao, Qingjia Micromachines (Basel) Article This study focused on the in-hover aerodynamics of a small rotor with a thin circular-arc airfoil and a convex structure at a low Reynolds number. The method combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with the blade element momentum theory (BEMT). The former was used for studying the two-dimensional parametric aerodynamics of the airfoil at a low Reynolds number and the latter was used for the prediction of the rotor’s hover performance. A novel thin circular-arc airfoil with a convex structure with a high aerodynamic performance, high structural strength, light weight and easy manufacturing process is presented in this paper. A convex curve on the upper surface was adopted to increase the thickness of the airfoil at partial chord, and a stiffener in the airfoil was installed to improve the structural strength of rotor span-wise. The aerodynamic performance of the airfoil was numerically simulated by the two-dimensional steady and incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The in-hover performance of the rotor for small-scale vehicles was predicted by an improved version of the blade element momentum theory (BEMT). Finally, a carbon-fiber rotor with the presented airfoil was manufactured that had a diameter of 40 cm and a pitch of 6.2 inches. The analysis results were verified by experiments. It was shown that the maximum calculation errors were below 6%. The improved BEMT can be used in the analysis of in-hover micro-rotor aerodynamics at low Reynolds numbers. MDPI 2023-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC10051304/ /pubmed/36984947 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030540 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lei, Yao
Wang, Jie
Li, Yazhou
Gao, Qingjia
In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title_full In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title_fullStr In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title_full_unstemmed In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title_short In-Hover Aerodynamic Analysis of a Small Rotor with a Thin Circular-Arc Airfoil and a Convex Structure at Low Reynolds Number
title_sort in-hover aerodynamic analysis of a small rotor with a thin circular-arc airfoil and a convex structure at low reynolds number
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10051304/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36984947
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030540
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