Title: Experimental and numerical investigation of co-axial rotor interaction to thrust

Authors: Ahmet Soydan; Hürkan Sahin; Barıs Biçer; Sebnem Sarıözkan; Mehmet Sahin

Addresses: Turkish Aerospace, Fethiye District, Havacılık Avenue, No. 17 06980, Kahramankazan, Ankara, Turkey ' Turkish Aerospace, Fethiye District, Havacılık Avenue, No. 17 06980, Kahramankazan, Ankara, Turkey ' Turkish Aerospace, Fethiye District, Havacılık Avenue, No. 17 06980, Kahramankazan, Ankara, Turkey ' Turkish Aerospace, Fethiye District, Havacılık Avenue, No. 17 06980, Kahramankazan, Ankara, Turkey ' Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract: The experimental and numerical computational investigation of co-axial rotor performance has been increased over the past decade in order to understand complex interactions in co-axial rotor flows to improve design of unmanned-aerial vehicles. Nevertheless, the issues related rotor aerodynamic performance, wake interactions, etc. are not well understood. In the current work, aerodynamic interactions in co-axial rotor have been investigated with both experimental and numerical methods in hover flight by varying tip diameters, rpm, axial distance, etc. In order to calculate the co-axial thrust efficiency, in-house test bench has been created. On the numerical side, the three-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes equation is solved using a pressure-based, segregated, compressible and time-accurate solver of OpenFOAM. A sliding mesh interface procedure is utilised to link rotating regions and SST k - ω model is employed for the turbulence modelling. The computational results indicate relatively good agreement with in-house experimental data.

Keywords: multi-rotor; coaxial rotor; OpenFOAM; RANS; sliding mesh; hover flight.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2022.125735

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2022 Vol.22 No.5, pp.317 - 330

Received: 25 Jan 2021
Accepted: 08 Jul 2021

Published online: 27 Sep 2022 *

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