Propeller-Wing Interaction Prediction for Early Design

In the current work a methodology to quickly estimate propeller slipstream effects on a finite wing, for early design stage, is developed. The aerodynamic model consists of a Truckenbrodt 3D lifting surface method, coupled with an airfoil numerical solver for taking into account viscosity and camber effects, and a blade element theory for the formulation of the propeller aerodynamics. Results of the proposed method are validated against RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes) data for a conventional four-propeller transport aircraft and a novel Contra-Rotating Open Rotor (CROR) aircraft. A good agreement with the high fidelity solutions is obtained. The low computational cost makes the method attractive and suitable for performing extensive studies such as Multi-Disciplinary Optimisation (MDO) or to explore several alternative designs during the conceptual and preliminary design phases