A Biomimetic Rotor-configuration Design for Optimal Aerodynamic Performance in Quadrotor Drone

Effect of Ducted Multi-Propeller Configuration on Aerodynamic Performance in Quadrotor Drone

“…The ducted multi-propeller model is generated based on the duct model obtained in Section 2.2.1. Figure 1 shows the geometric models of a basic non-ducted multi-propeller configuration (Figure 1a) and a maximum non-ducted multi-propeller configuration (Figure 1b) obtained in our previous research [19], which is the optimal configuration with a maximum rotor-to-rotor tip distance, verified to be capable of improving both lift force production and FM efficiency in the quadrotor drone of DJI phantom 3 advanced. Given the high-performance duct model as an initial input to the ducted multi-propeller configuration with the maximum rotor-to-rotor tip distance, the ducted maximum multi-propeller configuration (Figure 4a) is formed, and the ducted minimum multi-propeller configuration (Figure 4b) is generated through altering the rotor-to-rotor tip distance and height difference.…”

“…Estimation of the aerodynamic lift force on an isolated propeller in a ducted-propeller model is derived from the momentum theory, the blade element theory, and the aerodynamic principle of a ducted propeller [9,19,31,32] (Figure 2). The duct is composed of a rounded leading edge and a straight or tapered trailing edge formed as the inlet and diffuser section, respectively.…”

“…To determine a high-performance duct design in the ducted single-propeller model in terms of the duct's cross-section and tip clearance, six parameters in toto are utilized, including the tip clearance (d e ) expressing the gap between propeller tip and duct inwall; the propeller height (h p ), i.e., the height difference between the center of the inlet ellipse (point D) and the center of the propeller bottom (point P); the diffuser angle (α) denoting the inclination angle of the diffuser; the diffuser length (l e ); the height of ellipse inlet (h e ); and the radius of the ellipse inlet (r e ), with an original value of d e = 0.001 m, h p = 0, α = 0, l e = 0.06 m (0.5R), h e = 0.06 m (0.5R), and r e = 0.02 m (0.167R) (Figure 3). The thickness of the duct model is fixed to be 0.0015 m. The 3D single-propeller model is based on DJI phantom 3 advanced (Figure 1a) as used in our previous studies [19,33]. A systematic CFD-based analysis was conducted to examine the high-performance duct model in terms of aerodynamic performance and duct volume.…”

“…CFD-based simulations were conducted with the commercial software ANSYS CFX 14.5 (ANSYS Inc) under the conditions of a rotational speed of 5400 rpm for all propeller models with/without ducts, which is identical to that utilized in our previous studies [19,33]. The Reynolds number (Re) of a single propeller is calculated to be 7.4 × 10 4 [19], and the RANS modelling of turbulent flow with the SST turbulence model was adopted with a 'high-resolution mode' for all the simulations of ducted single-propeller and ducted multi-propeller models [19,33,34].…”

“…CFD-based simulations were conducted with the commercial software ANSYS CFX 14.5 (ANSYS Inc) under the conditions of a rotational speed of 5400 rpm for all propeller models with/without ducts, which is identical to that utilized in our previous studies [19,33]. The Reynolds number (Re) of a single propeller is calculated to be 7.4 × 10 4 [19], and the RANS modelling of turbulent flow with the SST turbulence model was adopted with a 'high-resolution mode' for all the simulations of ducted single-propeller and ducted multi-propeller models [19,33,34]. Following our previous studies [19,33,34], we generated the inflation layer meshes with seven layers surrounding the propeller surfaces to ensure high resolution of the boundary layer adjacent to walls while being clustered at the wingtip, leading edge, and trailing edge.…”