An Efficient Blade Design Method of a Ducted Fan Coupled with the CFD Modification

Abstract

In order to improve the design accuracy of the blade design method of a ducted fan based on the blade element momentum theory, the design was modified by the CFD calculation with higher accuracy to propose an integrated and efficient design method for the rotor and stator. Firstly, a fast blade design method for the ducted fan was established based on the blade element momentum theory, and the initial design of the rotor and stator was carried out. Then, the performance of the designed ducted fan was calculated by the CFD method, and the rotor and stator were modified and redesigned according to the CFD results. Such continuous iterations finally made the design results basically consistent with the CFD results so as to improve the design accuracy. The blade design of different ducted fans shows that the unsteady CFD method based on the sliding mesh has higher accuracy and applicability than the MRF method, and the efficient blade design method established in this paper can meet the thrust demand with a small amount of the CFD modification. The thrust design accuracy of the ducted fan was increased by 11.362%, and the torque design accuracy was increased by 8.141%.

Keywords

• ducted fan
• blade element momentum theory
• rotor design
• stator design
• sliding mesh