Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization (한국가시화정보학회지)

The Korean Society of Visualization (한국가시화정보학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Quadrotor wake characteristics according to the change of the rotor separation distance

로터 간격에 따른 쿼드로터의 후류특성 변화 연구

  • Lee, Seungcheol (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) ;
  • Chae, Seokbong (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) ;
  • Kim, Jooha (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology)
  • Received : 2019.12.09
  • Accepted : 2019.12.26
  • Published : 2019.12.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Rotor wake interaction must be considered to understand the quadrotor flight, and the rotor separation distance is an important parameter that affects the rotor wake interaction. In this study, the wake characteristics were investigated with varying the rotor separation distance. The velocity field in the rotor wake was measured using digital PIV for hovering mode at Re = 34,000, and the wake boundaries from the inner and outer rotor tips were quantitatively compared with varying the rotor separation distance. The symmetric rotor-tip vortex shedding about the rotor axis was found at a large rotor separation distance. However, the wake boundary became more asymmetric about the rotor axis with decreasing the rotor separation distance. At the minimum rotor separation distance, in particular, a faster vortex decay was observed due to a strong vortex interaction between adjacent rotors.

Keywords

References

  1. Kim, D. K., Wie, S. Y., Song, J. R., Song, K. W., Hwang, C. J., and Joo, G., 2015, "Technology trend on the status of the unmanned multicopter development," Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace, Vol. 13(2), pp. 80-91.
  2. Ramasamy, M., Gold, N. P., and Bhagwat, M. J., 2010, "Rotor hover performance and flowfield measurements with untwisted and highly-twisted blades," 36th European Rotorcraft Forum.
  3. Caradonna, F., Henley, E., Silva, M., Huang, S., Komerath, N., Mahalingam, R., Reddy, U., Funk, R., Wong, O., Ames, R., Darden, L., Villareal, L., and Gregory, J., 1999, "Performance measurement and wake characteristics of a model rotor in axial flight," Journal of the American Helicopter Society, Vol. 44, pp. 101-108. https://doi.org/10.4050/JAHS.44.101
  4. Conlisk, A. T., 1997, "Modern helicopter aerodynamics," Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 29(1), pp. 515-567. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.fluid.29.1.515
  5. Hoffmann, G., Huang, H., Waslander, S., and Tomlin, C., 2007, "Quadrotor helicopter flight dynamics and control: Theory and experiment," In AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and Exhibit, p. 6461.
  6. Yoon, S., Lee, H. C., and Pulliam, T. H., 2016, "Computational analysis of multi-rotor flows," In 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, p. 0812.
  7. Russell, C. R., Jung, J., Willink, G., and Glasner, B., 2016, "Wind tunnel and hover performance test results for multicopter UAS vehicles," 72nd Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society.
  8. Keane, R. D., and Adrian, R. J., 1990, "Optimization of particle image velocimeters. I. Double pulsed systems," Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 1(11), p. 1202. https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/1/11/013
  9. Mendes, H. J., and Egbue, O., 2018, "Analysis of inverted rotors in multirotor aerial vehicles with VTO," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 67(6), pp. 5535-5539. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVT.2018.2803057
  10. Aleksandrov, D., and Penkov, I., 2012, "Optimal gap distance between rotors of mini quadrotor helicopter," In Proceedings of Eighth International Conference on DAAAM Baltic, pp. 251-255.
  11. Zhou, W., Ning, Z., Li, H., and Hu, H., 2017, "An experimental investigation on rotor-to-rotor interactions of small UAV propellers," In 35th AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, p. 3744.