Integration of Twenty-Bladed Cross-Flow Fan into Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircraft

Abstract

The research presented is dedicated to determining an efficient rotor and housing system that will generate a sufficient thrust-to-weight ratio for vertical take-off and landing through computational modeling, implementation and experimentation. To accomplish this task, a new 20-bladed rotor was designed in SolidWorks and imported into ANSYS-CFX, which was used to analytically determine the thrust generated at speeds ranging from 4,000 rpm to 10,000 rpm. Upon successful simulation, a carbon-fiber model was fabricated and tested at speeds from 4,000 rpm to 9,700 rpm. With a promising thrust-to-weight ratio, a platform was built for initial testing utilizing two motors and four cross-flow fans. Initial platform testing was successful and generated sufficient thrust for vertical take-off.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA585694

Entities

People

  • Andria M. Jones

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Boundary Layer
  • Carbon Fibers
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Control Systems
  • Cross Flow
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Fluid Flow
  • Heat Transfer
  • Materials
  • Measurement
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Propulsion Systems
  • Rotary Wing Aircraft
  • Simulations
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)