• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.335-341
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• 2012

Purpose: While an unmanned helicopter has been extensively used for spraying chemicals on agricultural crops, its low utilization (two months per year from July to August) has recently become an issue. This study aimed to increase the utilization of the unmanned helicopter. The centrifugal rice seeder, a mounting device for rice seeding for unmanned helicopter was developed and assessed its performance. Methods: The concept of the centrifugal spraying device was to obtain design criteria for centrifugal distribution. Four types of blade shapes namely straight, curved, straight wing and curved wing were developed and used. The rotational speed of the blades was tested at 1,000, 1,200 and 1,400 rpm. Results: The blade shapes, rotational blade speed and angle of trajectory were theoretically analyzed and results were validated with a series of laboratory experiments. Conclusions: The curved wing blades provided the distribution uniformity (DU) at 1,200rpm of rotational speed and 60 degree of seed drop point. The spray uniformity of 4.2% was also achieved.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.54-63
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• 2022

Recently, electric propulsion aircraft with various propeller mounting positions have been under construction. The position of the propeller relative to the wing can significantly affect the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. Placing the propeller in front of the wing produces a complex swirl flow behind or around the propeller. The up/downwash induced by the swirl flow can alter the wing's local effective angle of attack, causing a change in the aerodynamic load distribution across the wing's spanwise direction. This study investigated the influence of the distance between a propeller and a wing on the aerodynamic loads on the wing. The swirl flow generated by the propeller was modelled using an actuator disk theory, and the wing's aerodynamics were analysed with the VSPAERO tool. Results of the study were compared to wind tunnel test data and established that both axial and spanwise distance between the propeller and the wing positively affect the wing's lift-to-drag ratio. Specifically, it was observed that the lift-to-drag ratio increases when the propeller is positioned higher than the wing.