Print Email Facebook Twitter Aerodynamic interaction effects of circular and square ducted propellers Title Aerodynamic interaction effects of circular and square ducted propellers Author Mourão Bento, Hugo (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering) Contributor de Vries, R. (mentor) Veldhuis, L.L.M. (mentor) Eitelberg, G. (graduation committee) Avallone, F. (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Aerospace Engineering | Flight Performance and Propulsion Date 2019-05-03 Abstract With the goal of decreasing the environmental impact of aircraft, ducted propellers emerge as an efficient propulsive alternative. Ducts are able to increase the thrust to power ratio of a propeller system by both producing thrust and/or lowering tip losses of propellers. In this thesis, RANS CFD simulations were used to analyse the possible impact of modifying a propeller duct shape from a circular to a square geometry. Initially, the two duct designs and the propeller were studied as isolated cases, in order to characterise their aerodynamic performance. In the installed simulations, the propeller was first modelled as an actuator disk, and afterwards with a full blade model. The results indicate two main disadvantages of square ducts. Square duct corners were found to be prone to separation, and to contribute towards the generation of strong vortices. This research can be important for the future study of unconventional ducted propellers, for example with applications to distributed propulsion concepts. Subject Aerodynamic performanceCircular ductSquare ductPropellerPropeller-duct interactionCFDActuator disk modelFull blade model To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:54c220fb-fcfb-4e2c-9dba-40afc70e3b7f Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2019 Hugo Mourão Bento Files PDF MSc_thesis_HugoBento.pdf 68.99 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:54c220fb-fcfb-4e2c-9dba-40afc70e3b7f/datastream/OBJ/view