Exploratory Optimizations of Propeller Blades for a High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite

Aeroelastic Response Simulation of a 3D Printed High Altitude Propeller

“…The propeller blade geometry is obtained from the exploratory optimization process that has been performed in [2]. The most efficient candidate has been chosen for this study, which is a four-bladed (04) propeller obtained from optimization round E with Clark-Y airfoils and diameter = 1.9 m. Due to the lack of experimental data at high altitude, The NACA 4-( 5)(05)-041 four bladed single rotation propeller [20] with diameter of = 1.22 m, for which experimental data is available, is used to validate the CFD model using ANSYS Fluent 2021 R1 with implicit density based solver and the − SST turbulence model.…”

“…The sea level performance has been calculated to estimate the generated thrust during the take-off that must be high enough to overcome the aircraft total drag and greater than a given value. Table (2) gives the thrust values at 0 and 16 km at different operating points. The results also show that the propeller can ensure an efficient take-off by generating a propulsive power of 126 kW and 236 kW for the most two (02) efficient operating points (J= 1.4 and J= 1.25) respectively with an efficiency greater than 80%.…”

“…Efficient propulsion requires the use of a propeller as propulsive element in such applications. However, the low density and the low temperature of the air at high altitude make the propeller operate in a regime of high Mach and low Reynolds numbers accompanied by lower engine power absorption, stronger blade to blade interaction, and increased risk of flutter [2].…”

Assessment of Multi-fidelity Surrogate Models for High-Altitude Propeller Optimization

“…Currently, the main effort for the design of high altitude propellers has been given to modification or improvement of classical methods for propeller design and performance evaluation, like the Blade Element Method and Vortex Theory [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. These 2D-based methods decompose the blade flow into a sum of elemental flows over a finite number of airfoil sections that constitute the propeller blade.…”

“…These 2D-based methods decompose the blade flow into a sum of elemental flows over a finite number of airfoil sections that constitute the propeller blade. Despite corrections for the presence of 3D phenomena, the discrepancies from reality grow larger in more complex propeller designs, like swept blades or adverse flow conditions [11]. Therefore, their use as the main performance evaluation model in an optimization framework may be accompanied with large uncertainty of the optimum designs or misleading mapping of the objective space in general.…”