A Numerical Investigation into Transonic Flight on Mars Utilizing a 2-D URANS Approach

Interest in powered flight on Mars has been growing in recent years, and as such new developments are being made in determining the effects the Martian atmosphere has on the flow physics and performance, specifically with regards to similarity parameters: the Reynolds number & the Mach number. This paper aimed to investigate whether the...

Towards high-fidelity aero-servo-elasticity analysis

The development of a high-fidelity fluid-structure interaction tool for the simulation of aircraft flight dynamics in the subsonic flow regime is presented. The tool combines a high-fidelity large-eddy simulation code with an immersed boundary method, a multibody solver and a loose coupling scheme between fluid and solid. The development of the...

Noise radiation of a low Reynolds propeller at an angle of attack: an experimental and analytical study

This work presents an experimental and analytical investigation of unsteady loading of a low Reynolds number propeller and its relation to aeroacoustics. The propeller is positioned at an angle of attack with respect to the freestream which causes a variation in loading along the azimuth. The propeller is operated at 4000 RPM with an advance...

Investigation of propeller characteristics at low Reynolds number with an angle of attack: A computational aeroacoustic study

Advancements in technology have made commercial unmanned aerial vehicles reliable and readily available, leading to an exponential rise in their market demand over the past few years. COVID-19 has further accelerated this growth through an increase in demand for contact-less delivery and crowd monitoring systems. However,...

Study of the bifurcation behavior of the flow around a 2D Ahmed body applied to active flow control systems

This master thesis focuses in the study of the application of active flow control in the transitional regime (Re ≈ 3E3) at the rear part of the roof of a 2D Ahmed body geometry. To do so, the natural bifurcations of the problem (which separate the ordered laminar behavior from the first pre-turbulent chaotic behavior) are studied, and different...

Low Reynolds number Performance of contra-rotating Coaxial Rotors: Evaluated for use by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Looking at performance prediction of small coaxial rotorcraft, it was found that there are no fast methods available for designers. This research was aimed at using a blade element method in combination with the momentum theory to quickly predict the performance at small coaxial rotorcraft. These methods are successfully applied in larger...