Influence of key design parameters on aerodynamics performance of cycloidal propeller

The two-dimensional cycloidal propeller model was simplified from a cycloidal propeller aircraft developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University. The dynamic mesh method of spring-based smoothing and local remeshing was adopted to achieve blades' rotating and pitching movement in the unsteady numerical simulation. The influence of the key design parameters on aerodynamics performance of cycloidal propeller was researched. The result shows that, the aerodynamics efficiency of hovering status is found higher with the increase of blade number; when the airfoil thickness increases, the thrust level is higher while the aerodynamics power is lower; the aerodynamics efficiency of hovering status and power loading reach highest when the pitching axis is located at middle chord length of blade; when the maxium pitching angle is higher, the aerodynamics power becomes larger and aerodynamics efficiency of hovering status is lower; and when the sum of maxium pitching angle at top position and maxium pitching angle at bottom position is constant, the thrust, aerodynamics power and aerodynamics efficiency of hovering status are higher if the maxium pitching angle at top position is small.