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<p>Cargo unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are typical examples of urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft that are expected to enter into service in urban areas in Europe as well as other places in the world within this decade. Such UAM applications can add value to society; however, noise emissions remain a major problem as these kinds of aircraft are supposed to operate close to populated areas. The authors address this problem with a novel multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) approach implementation for noise-aware propeller design. The program focuses on fixed-pitch propellers operating under operating points with conflicting aerodynamic requirements on the blades. Key aspects of this novel program are its capability to consider constraints from arbitrary numbers of operating points, an effective parametrization of blade, airfoil, and propeller shape, and the incorporation of numerically efficient Blade Element Theory (BET)-based aerodynamics solvers. Noise results are obtained with a Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) solver that is coupled to the BET solver. Furthermore, the work provides three validation cases that confirm the correctness and accuracy of its medium-fidelity optimization toolchain. The medium-fidelity toolchain results are compared against high-fidelity Reynolds Averages Navier–Stokes (RANS) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results and aerodynamic and aeroacoustic measurement data and show good agreement. Two propeller design studies are carried out after presenting the design program implementation and toolchain validation. The first study demonstrates the noise reduction potential of blade shape, airfoil shape, and propeller shape parametrization, and shows agreement of the obtained result trends with the scientific literature. The second study focuses on the design of dual-mode cruise propellers for an existing electric vertical take-off and landing UAV. The influence of constraining operating points is systematically studied, and a competitive noise/efficiency trade-off design is identified through the MDO approach presented in this work. The optimization results are substantiated through comparisons to high-fidelity CFD/FW-H results.</p>

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Implementation and validation of an optimization-based propeller design program

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年5月16日

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  • M. Schmähl,
  • M. Hornung

摘要

Cargo unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are typical examples of urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft that are expected to enter into service in urban areas in Europe as well as other places in the world within this decade. Such UAM applications can add value to society; however, noise emissions remain a major problem as these kinds of aircraft are supposed to operate close to populated areas. The authors address this problem with a novel multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) approach implementation for noise-aware propeller design. The program focuses on fixed-pitch propellers operating under operating points with conflicting aerodynamic requirements on the blades. Key aspects of this novel program are its capability to consider constraints from arbitrary numbers of operating points, an effective parametrization of blade, airfoil, and propeller shape, and the incorporation of numerically efficient Blade Element Theory (BET)-based aerodynamics solvers. Noise results are obtained with a Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) solver that is coupled to the BET solver. Furthermore, the work provides three validation cases that confirm the correctness and accuracy of its medium-fidelity optimization toolchain. The medium-fidelity toolchain results are compared against high-fidelity Reynolds Averages Navier–Stokes (RANS) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results and aerodynamic and aeroacoustic measurement data and show good agreement. Two propeller design studies are carried out after presenting the design program implementation and toolchain validation. The first study demonstrates the noise reduction potential of blade shape, airfoil shape, and propeller shape parametrization, and shows agreement of the obtained result trends with the scientific literature. The second study focuses on the design of dual-mode cruise propellers for an existing electric vertical take-off and landing UAV. The influence of constraining operating points is systematically studied, and a competitive noise/efficiency trade-off design is identified through the MDO approach presented in this work. The optimization results are substantiated through comparisons to high-fidelity CFD/FW-H results.