78. Comparative Aerodynamic Performance Analysis on Modified UAV’s Propeller by Using CFD

In multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the propeller and its noise generation are plays a focal position in the determination of the radar signature. Because of this detection possibility, the implementations of compact UAV in surveillance-based applications have been reduced. Therefore, nowadays, huge research is going on the noise reduction techniques in the UAV's propeller, in which propeller's profile modification technique primarily reduces the noise generation. But the research on noise reduction is the failure to include the primary consideration, which are aerodynamic parameters such as lift, drag, etc. In this work deals with the comparative aerodynamic performance analysis on various modified UAV's propeller, in which six conceptual designs of propellers are analyzed. The base propeller and five other profile modified propellers are used in this work. The finalized fundamental platform of this work is bull-nose propeller, which has a 4.5-inch pitch, 5-inch diameter and can provide 500 g average thrust. CATIA is an advanced modeling tool, which is supported a lot for all the models’ construction. An advanced CFD numerical tool, i.e., Ansys fluent is used in this work for the prediction of aerodynamic performance parameters for all the models. Finally, based on exit velocity and thrust, the propeller optimization and its edge modification are obtained by using CFD's numerical tool.