11:00
Propellor aeroelasticity
Chair: Thomas Wilson
11:00
30 mins
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Influence of aerodynamic modeling on the whirl flutter stability of a propeller under axial and non-axial flow conditions
Vincent de Gaudemaris, Jean-Sébastien Schotté, Antoine Placzek, Laurent Blanc, Fabrice Thouverez
Abstract: The next generation of propeller-driven aircraft raises new concerns about their stability regarding the whirl flutter phenomenon. This instability has to be evaluated early in the design phase, thereby raising a need for fast and robust prediction methods. The key to analyzing such instability is the modeling of the motion-induced aerodynamic loads on the propeller. This paper proposes to build and compare different aerodynamic modeling methods ranging from low- to mid-fidelity. The comparison of the resulting stability boundaries shows that certain low-fidelity models give results close to mid-fidelity, emphasizing the advantages of these fast low-fidelity methods for the whirl flutter prediction. The interest of mid-fidelity modeling techniques in the study of non-conventional situations is also looked at. In particular, the occurrence of whirl flutter under non-axial flow is studied. The obtained stability boundaries highlight a slight stabilizing influence, demonstrating that the axial flight situation remains a conservative framework for whirl flutter studies.
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11:30
30 mins
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Aeroelastic tailoring of dual-role propellers
Carlo Rotundo, Jurij Sodja, Tomas Sinnige
Abstract: Hybrid- or fully-electric propeller-based propulsion systems have recently gained interest as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the rapidly expanding aerospace industry. The electrification of aircraft enables the possibility for energy harvesting during flight phases where no power input is required. The use of aircraft propellers to harvest energy was first suggested by Glauert [1] in 1926, although there was no feasible technology at the time of his research to implement the idea. Seventy years later, MacCready [2] and Barnes [3]–[5], revisited the concept in a battery electric and self-launching sailplane, which could operate its propellers as energy harvesters during descending flight. Both MacCready and Barnes found that the optimal propeller geometries for energy-harvesting and propulsive operation significantly differ from each other. Recently, Erzen et al. [6] were able to obtain a 19% decrease in energy consumption during the ascend/descend flight pattern with a rigid propeller designed specifically for propulsive and energy-harvesting operation in comparison to a conventional propeller. The observed performance improvement, however, heavily depends on the selected flight pattern. The proposed paper will investigate the potential for aeroelastic tailoring of composite blades to improve the performance of propellers operating in propulsive and energy-harvesting modes, considering a realistic mission profile of a typical general aviation type of aircraft. To assess the effect of the mission profile on the propeller design, the mission profile was varied by changing the length of the cruise phase relative to the ascend and descent flight phases. To obtain an optimal propeller design featuring tailored composites, an aeroelastic model [7] was assembled by closely coupling a nonlinear Timoshenko beam model with BEM theory. The model was embedded in an optimisation routine considering lamination parameters and pitch setting as design variables, while the propeller geometry in terms of spanwise chord and twist distribution was kept constant. In addition, both fixed- and variable-pitch propellers were considered during optimization studies involving the full mission, and optimal blade designs corresponding to each individual mission segment were also obtained. The collected results confirm that composite tailoring can noticeably improve the performance of dual-role propellers, especially for mission profiles featuring relatively short cruise flight phases through the reduction of energy consumption by up to 2.0% with respect to the baseline rigid propeller. As the cruise distance is increased, maximum decreases in energy consumption are reduced to 1.5%. Lastly, it is interesting to observe that composite tailoring dominated by cruise distance has a positive effect on the performance during the ascend flight phase as well.
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