Coanda effect of a propeller airflow and its aerodynamic impact on the thrust

Abstract

The aerodynamic performance of the multi-rotor drone under the wall proximity has been investigated by experiment and numerical simulation. The propeller airflow along with the wall deflects toward the wall due to the Coanda effect, and it yields a negative impact on the aerodynamic performance. The present study aims to reveal the link between the propeller thrust and the propeller airflow under different wall proximity conditions. The deflection of the flow is confirmed by the flow visualization, and the wall pressure exhibits the signature of flow attachment both in the profiles of the mean and the fluctuation. The force measurement indicates that the degradation of the thrust is significant enough to affect the stability of the drone body. A possible reason of the decrease in thrust is found in the streamwise velocity distribution. The velocity distributions obtained by the numerical simulation indicate that the swirling motion is significantly suppressed due to the wall proximity effect. Moreover, the pressure distribution on the propeller surface explains the decrease of the thrust. The magnitude of the pressure difference becomes smaller when the propeller blade approaches very close to the wall.

Keywords

• multi-rotor drones
• propeller airflow
• coanda effect
• particle image velocimetry
• large eddy simulation