Estimation of the thrust coefficient of a Quadcopter Propeller using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

A Quadcopter is a mechatronics device with complex dynamics, because six degree of motion is control by four thrust forces. These thrust force are generated by propellers rotation, driven by DC motors. The main objective of present study is to perform the flow analysis on a Quadcopter propeller, to find out the propeller thrust coefficient (Kt). The flow analysis of Quadcopter propeller is essential as it opposes the gravitational and aerodynamic forces due to the drag and weight mounted on it. So, a 3D CAD model of Quadcopter propeller was designed in Catia and imported to Ansys fluid flow (fluent) module for fluid flow simulation. The flow over propeller was simulated under different angular speed with k-epsilon turbulence model. The obtained results conclude that the designed propeller can generate the required amount of thrust force to lift additional payloads. Furthermore the generated thrust force at different angular speed was used to find out the thrust coefficient. This thrust coefficient will used in developing the mathematical dynamic model of Quadcopter UAV.