Project Director

Sreenivas, Kidambi

Department Examiner

Margraves, Charles

Department

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Beginning in 2018, the AIAA began the workshop for integrated propeller prediction. This effort was intended to bolster the CFD prediction capabilities of the aerospace community due to a resurgent interest in propeller driven vehicles for electric applications. The test bed for this workshop is the NASA X-57, a model of which was experimentally tested in the Lockheed Martin Low Speed Wind Tunnel in January 2019. Using the 3D scanned geometry provided by the workshop a mesh was created and all priority one simulations were performed using two flow solvers. The flow solvers used were Helios, developed by the ADD office, and Tenasi developed at the UTC SimCenter. The flow solvers were compared as closely as possible with results relating directly to the metrics studied by the experimental tests. This includes the aerodynamic parameters of C_D, C_L, C_T. This also includes C_P plots at 6 span locations for all cases and lastly a wake survey yielding integrated torque and thrust values for the powered propeller case. The results show that while Tenasi functions well as an all-purpose solver, outperforming Helios in some areas, the best predictions of the propellers and their interactions come from the Helios flow solver.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the gracious use of technological, computational, and human resources provided by the SimCenter at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, through a grant from the UC Foundation. Additionally, Dr. Kidambi Sreenivas and Dr. Charles Margraves have been invaluable to this process. Images were created by using FieldView as provided by Intelligent Light through its University Partners Program. I would also like to acknowledge computational resources and access to Helios have been provided by the ADD office and DOD HPC program. Without such support this thesis would not be possible. Additional thanks for the support of the ADD office, particularly Roger Strawn, Mark Potsdam, Buvana Jayaraman, and Jared Sagaga.

Degree

B. S.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science.

Date

5-2020

Subject

Computational fluid dynamics; Propellers, Aerial

Keyword

AIAA; CFD; Helios; propeller; Tenasi

Discipline

Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics

Document Type

Theses

Extent

69 leaves

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Date Available

4-13-2020

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