Numerical study of noise reduction on looped propeller blades with bio-inspired tubercles

Du Plessis, Justin; Bouferrouk, Abdesselam; Pontillo, Alessandro

Abstract

This research investigates the effect of looped propeller blades with bio-inspired sinusoidal leading-edge tubercles. CFD simulations were conducted using ANSYS Fluent, utilising a Detached Eddy Simulation viscous model combined with a Ffowcs Williams Hawkings model for acoustics. Further RANS simulations were conducted for performance simulations in static and forward flight conditions. The investigation’s findings found that the looped propeller was able to create large reductions in tonal noise emitted from the propeller. It was also found that all the tested tubercle variations were able to further reduce the noise at the tonal harmonics. The findings also found that the looped propellers and the tested tubercle variations reduced the maximum thrust generated but were able to reduce the CP at all tested velocities. This study’s findings may have applications for eVTOLs and UAVs in urban environments.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: QuietDrones 2024
• Start Date: Sep 8, 2024
• End Date: Sep 11, 2024
• Acceptance Date: Jul 15, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Nov 28, 2024
• Publication Date: Nov 28, 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 20, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 25, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: Proceedings of QuietDrones 2024
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.c.7564224.v1
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13964708