COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A THREE DIMENSIONAL LASER SCANNED PROPELLER USING CFX

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Egyptian Armed Forces.

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Conventional techniques used for measuring propellers geometric parameters are
either destructive or in accurate or even time consuming. The outer surface of a two-
Bladed wooden propeller of a powered Para-Parachute was scanned using a three
dimensional laser scanner. A cloud of points has resulted out of the scanning
process. Sections were taken in the cloud of points to draw the airfoil profiles at
certain radii stations of the propeller, and then they were used to build a CAD model
using CFX blade generator.
Before manufacturing a prototype a computational fluid dynamic analysis has been
performed using CFX blade Gen+ in order to validate the measured data, the
analysis of the inflow and outflow properties were used to calculate the thrust of the
propeller showing results that satisfies the propeller available data. A prototype has
been manufactured depending on the geometrical data obtained by laser scanning
and a flight test has been performed where the propeller succeeded to generate the
thrust required by the Powered Propeller to take off with its payload.

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