• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.95-105
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• 2018

Increasing cruise speed is an important issue for the development of the next generation rotorcraft. Among several concepts proposed by previous research, the rotorcraft with ducted fan demonstrates its possibility of high-speed flight. In this study, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the aerodynamic and flow characteristics of multi-ducted fan in forward flight. The aerodynamic efficiency around front ducted fan is determined by interaction between free-stream velocity and the induced velocity. While flow characteristics of rear ducted fan are dominantly influenced by the front ducted fan. Separation in the front ducted fan occurs faster than that of rear ducted fan, and the separation at duct inlet induces an increase of fan thrust. As a result of interaction effect between each ducted fan, relatively aligned inflow enters to the rear ducted fan. Therefore, thrust of the rear fan is decreased steadily before separation, and sudden changes of thrust in fans occur simultaneously. Due to the pressure decrease on lower surface, the normal force of rotorcraft is reduced with forward speed.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.10-15
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• 2023

Wet multi-disk clutch, a power switching device of the ducted fan, was optimized and results were analyzed. The clutch was divided into two types depending on whether a mechanical lock-up was applied or not. It was optimized under each design condition. Transfer torque capacity, friction material surface pressure, friction surface temperature, and drag torque were calculated as factors to optimize the clutch. The volume of separator plate and drag torque were used as the objective function for optimization. In the case of Type 1, which did not include a mechanical lock-up, the clutch could be operated regardless of the pitch angle of the ducted fan. However, the outer diameter of the friction surface was doubled, the volume was increased by 5~7 times, and the drag torque was increased by 7~12 times compared to those of Type 2, which included a mechanical lock-up.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.45 no.9
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• pp.711-723
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• 2017

This paper proposes a flight control system for an organic flight array(OFA) which has a new configuration to consist of multi modularized ducted-fan unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The OFA is able to apply to various missions such as indoor reconnaissance, communication relay, and radar jamming by using capability of hover flight. The OFA has a distinguished advantage due to reconfigurable structure to assemble or separate with respect to its missions or operational conditions. A dynamic modelling of the OFA is derived based on equations of motion of the single ducted-fan modules. In order to apply nonlinear control method, an affine system of attitude dynamics is derived. Moreover, the control system is composed of a back-stepping controller for attitude control and a PID controller for position control. Then the performance of the proposed controller is verified via a numerical simulation under wind disturbance.