WMLES of flows around small-scale propellers – estimating aerodynamic performance and wake visualization

Wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (WMLES) is an advanced mathematical model for turbulent flows which solves for the low-pass filtered numerical solution. A subgrid-scale (SGS) model is used to account for the effects of unresolved small-scale turbulent structures on the resolved scales (i.e. for the dissipation of the smaller scales), while the flow behavior near the walls is modeled by wall functions (thus reducing the requirements for mesh fineness/quality). This paper investigates the possibilities of applying WMLES in the estimation of aerodynamic performance of small-scale propellers, as well as in the analysis of the wake forming downstream. Induced flows around two propellers designed for unmanned air vehicles (approximately 25cm and 75cm in diameter) in hover are considered unsteady and turbulent (incompressible or compressible, respectively). Difficulties in computing such flows mainly originate from the relatively low values of Reynolds numbers (several tens to several hundreds of thousands) when transition and other flow phenomena may be present. The choice of the employed numerical model is substantiated by comparisons of resulting numerical with available experimental data. Whereas global quantities, such as thrust and power (coefficients), can be predicted with satisfactory accuracy (up-to several percents), distinguishing the predominant flow features remains challenging (and requires additional computational effort). Here, wakes forming aft of the propeller rotors are visualized and analyzed. These two benchmark examples provide useful guidelines for further numerical and experimental studies of small-scale propellers.