High-Fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics Methods for the Simulation of Propeller Stall Flutter

Abstract

A time-marching aeroelastic method developed for the study of propeller flutter is presented and validated. Propeller flutter can take many forms, with stall, whirl, and classical flutter being the primary responses. These types of flutter require accurate capture of the nonlinear aerodynamics associated with propeller blades. Stall flutter in particular needs detailed unsteady flow modeling. With the development of modern propeller designs potentially adjusting the flutter boundary and the development of faster computing power, computational fluid dynamics is required to ensure accurate capture of aerodynamics. Given the lack of reliable experimental stall flutter data for propellers, the method was focused on observing the correct qualitative behavior with a comparison made between unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes and scale-adaptive simulations.