Single & contra rotating propellers: a summary of aerodynamics models

PhDaer Seminar

Speaker:
Professor Antonino Filippone, School of Engineering, The University of Manchester

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in propeller systems because of their lower environmental impact (higher efficiency), as well as the advent of electrically powered vehicles. This new interest as generated a plethora of new configurations and spurred a development in sophisticated methods of analysis, design, and optimisation. The seminar summarises on-going developments and focusses on aerodynamic simulation methods for both single- and contra-rotating propellers (vortex methods, rotor-on-rotor interference, wake models), alongside new configurations such as unequal blade spacing, folding propellers, locked-rotors, and propellers with vanes.