Only the two rotating regions need to be define and we are ready for the simulation.
The set up for this case is rather simple. Otherwise, the mesh around the bolt and gears will refine and massively increase the cell count and solver time.Īfter identifying the important components in the assembly, the next step will be setting the boundary conditions. Other details like the inner frame or little bots and gears will not give any accuracy also can be ignored. theoretically, to obtain accurate result, canopy and main structural components for completeness must be included. Hence, all the components that are irrelevant can be “switched off”. As mentioned, the focus the flow around the rotor blades. The main study for this rotor blade is the driving force that produced by the spinning of the rotor blades. In this case, the fluid is air and all the other conditions are maintained to be standard. Of course, the working fluid is also important. To make the simulation run faster, stuffs that no direct influence to the flow may ignore by exclude cavity and internal space. Since the simulation is an external region of the rotor, the analysis type must be set to “external”. The setting of the mesh is as shown below. Therefore, the local rotating region (sliding mesh) technique will be used. Theoretically, the rotor blades should produce flow fields that may not axially symmetric. Before jumping into Flow Simulation tool, we first need to create a couple of parts that represent the rotating region of our study. Here come the suggested set up to perform the helicopter rotor simulation. Hence, flow simulation is to be done to test the maximum lift the configuration can produce as well as the maximum torque the rotor need to withstand during the spinning. Different pitch angle will produce different lift due to the aerodynamic lift contribution. The diagram below shows the pitch angle at +10 degrees. Let the pitch angle range from -10 degrees to +10 degrees where zero being neutral or no lift produced. The amount of that the rotor able to produce is dependent to the pitch angle of the rotor. Helicopter blades are designed to operate at a constant RPM. To allow the helicopter to lift, the spinning rotor needs to generate the lift more than 20N (4.5 Ib) to make the lifting possible. The pressure difference between upper and lower aerofoil surface produces a perpendicular force which is known as lift.įrom Hawk Ridge Systems, the RC helicopter is designed to have a mass of 2kg. Whereas, for lower surface of the aerofoil, the air velocity is lower than the upper surface and producing higher pressure. As the aerofoil is moving toward the airflow, the air at the upper surface of the wing experience higher velocity and reduced pressure. To better understand the lift, a pressure difference around the aerofoil is used. Lift is defined by the component of force generated by solid body that is perpendicular to the flow direction. As mentioned, RC helicopter flies when the lift is sufficiently high to rise the RC helicopter. Īssume that now you have a RC helicopter model and you would like to know the performance of the helicopter by varying the rotor spinning rate. The reference for this case study is from Hawk Ridge Systems.
SOLIDWORKS FLOW SIMULATION PROPELLER HOW TO
Hence, in this case study, we shall focus on how to simulate the helicopter rotor as well as the flow around the it. As it rotates, it creates a force called lift that allows the UAV to rise into the air as well as giving high manoeuvrability to the aircraft itself. The propeller of UAVs is also called as spinning wing. Since UAV is an aircraft that travels with lower speed, hence most of the UAVs are installed with propeller. The flights of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by human operator or autonomously by onboard computers. The introduction of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as drone has made a big leapt towards a smaller aircraft with greater mobility.
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