• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2021

Electric-powered distributed propulsion aircraft possess a complex wake flow and mutual interference with the airframe, due to the use of many propellers. Accordingly, in the early design stage, rapid aerodynamic and load analysis considering the effect of propellers for various configurations and flight conditions are required. In this study, an efficient panel-based aerodynamic analysis method that can take into account the propeller effects is developed and validated. The induced velocity field in the region of propeller wake is calculated based on Actuator Disk Theory (ADT) and is considered as the boundary condition at the vehicle's surface in the three-dimensional steady source-doublet panel method. Analyses are carried out by selecting an isolated propeller of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)'s Quad Tilt Propeller (QTP) aircraft and the propeller-wing configuration of the former experimental study as benchmark problems. Through comparisons with the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based on actuator methods, the wake velocity of propeller and the changes in the aerodynamic load distribution of the wing due to the propeller operation are validated. The method is applied to the analysis of the Optional Piloted Personal Aerial Vehicle (OPPAV) and QTP, and the practicality and validity of the method are confirmed through comparison and analysis of the computational time and results with CFD.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.445-454
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• 2022

Ice accretion on the aircraft components, such as wings, fuselage, and empennage, can occur when the aircraft encounters a cloud zone with high humidity and low temperature. The prevention of ice accretion is important because it causes a decrease in the aerodynamic performance and flight stability, thus leading to fatal safety problems. In this study, a shape design optimization of a multi-element airfoil is performed to minimize the amount of ice accretion on the high-lift device including leading-edge slat, main element, and trailing-edge flap. The design optimization framework proposed in this paper consists of four major parts: air flow, droplet impingement and ice accretion simulations and gradient-free optimization algorithm. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation is used to predict the aerodynamic performance and flow field around the multi-element airfoil at the angle of attack 8°. Droplet impingement and ice accretion simulations are conducted using the multi-physics computational analysis tool. The objective function is to minimize the total mass of ice accretion and the design variables are the deflection angle, gap, and overhang of the flap and slat. Kriging surrogate model is used to construct the response surface, providing rapid approximations of time-consuming function evaluation, and genetic algorithm is employed to find the optimal solution. As a result of optimization, the total mass of ice accretion on the optimized multielement airfoil is reduced by about 8% compared to the baseline configuration.