What is it about?
To further reduce the energy consumption of electric aircraft, regenerative braking could be employed in the descent phase to recover part of the kinetic and gravitational potential energy, similar to electric cars. This can be achieved by using the propellers as small wind-turbines which also will lead to negative thrust on the propeller blades, meaning more drag. Aircraft propellers are mainly designed for propulsive conditions during cruise and are not meant to operate as a wind turbine. When the propellers are being operated in this non-conventional energy-harvesting regime, the aerodynamics around the blades will be far from ideal. This study describes the aerodynamic performance of a propeller which is operated in both propulsive and the energy-harvesting conditions.
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Why is it important?
Aviation must be more sustainable, especially if the sector keeps on growing. More sustainable aircraft can be achieved by using distributed propeller concepts, that make use of beneficial propulsion integration. Using the propellers for more purposes than only producing thrust could aid in this process. Plenty of studies have separately focussed on both propellers and wind turbines. However, the use of the propeller as wind turbine is a new concept. Understanding the aerodynamics of propellers when they operate in off-design conditions is of vital importance to arrive at more sustainable aircraft designs that make use of propellers.
Perspectives
The performed experiments were very novel, in the fact that we are using the propeller in non-conventional conditions. I hope this study can serve as source of validation data but also as inspiration to further investigate the aerodynamic performance of propellers in off-design conditions. Future installed propeller-wing experiments will be needed to also investigate the impact of using propellers to harvest energy on the overal aircraft performance.
Robert Nederlof
Technische Universiteit Delft
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Experimental Investigation of the Aerodynamic Performance of a Propeller at Positive and Negative Thrust and Power, June 2022, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-3893.
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