TsAGI Working on Aircraft Propeller Multidisciplinary Design System
21 February 2023
Creating new advanced aircraft is a basis of technological sovereignty of national aircraft industry. Today, there is an increasing demand for regional prop aircraft capable of enhancing transport accessibility in remote areas.
Scientists at TsAGI (a part of NRC “Zhukovsky Institute”) are elaborating a multidisciplinary design system of regional aircraft propulsion propeller. The system aims to unite numerical modeling software tools into a single package.
‘The project is remarkable with a single approach shaped towards the design of highly-effective propellers that must meet operational requirements, lifecycle requirements, weight requirements, environmental noise requirements, etc. Creating the multidisciplinary design system, we did numerical calculation of the propeller’s aerodynamics, acoustics and strength, and did bench tests afterwards. Comparison of numerical and test data was followed by the analysis of conditions and capabilities of applying contemporary calculation methods to determine regional aircraft propeller performance. R&D results are demanded by our design bureaus for development of new domestic aircraft,’ said Kirill Anisimov, Head for High-Performance Computing Development, TsAGI.
The research is carried out to implement Russia’s National Research-and-Technology Development Program. The research focuses on reducing the terms and enhancing quality of propeller development through improved methods of design, numerical modeling and multidisciplinary optimization.
Headed by Kirill Anisimov, TsAGI Research Center for High-Performance Computing Development analyzed relevant technological advance; afterwards, they integrated the aerodynamics, acoustics and strength into a unified multidisciplinary system of regional aircraft propeller optimization. Then, software was developed to mock up the system of propeller multidisciplinary design and optimization; interfaces were described to integrate it with advanced aircraft concept design system.
Next, test propeller was designed and manufactured. Full-scale composite propeller was tested with SDU-104M propeller test bench in the T-101 large wind tunnel. Propeller thrust, torsion and stress-strain behavior parameters of its blades were measured during the test. For this, contactless optical methods of stereovideogrammetry and strain-gauge measurement were used; for the first time, specialists applied the SKI-64 telemetry system developed by TsAGI Department for Measuring Equipment and Metrology. The SKI-64 provided simultaneous registration of data from strain-gauging blades and its transmission to the operator’s position via embedded radio channel. The test data was used for validating numerical methods.
The results of the research will become the basis for technological advance on advanced propeller aerodynamic design considering the requirements on aeroacoustics, strength and aircraft/propulsion parametric integration.
It is planned to verify and validate the numerical models determining propeller performance through extended bench and full-scale experimental data obtained on regional aircraft.