AERODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF PROPELLERS BY COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Resumo

Propellers are widely used in our day-to-day for various purposes. Aerodynamic analyzes
are necessary to evaluate the thrust generated and the power that the propeller is capable of absorbing or
delivering. Among the available tools for this purpose, we highlight the computational fluid dynamics
(CFD). In general, the main concerns for the use of CFD lie in the complexity of its geometry, which is
often not provided by the manufacturer, the generation of the mesh, and the use of appropriate numerical
techniques to solve the problem. Regarding this last observation, the computational tools must be able
to accommodate the movement of the rotating domain of the propeller to the computational domain.
Besides, due to the flow characteristics, turbulence models must be incorporated to represent the entire

behavior of the system adequately. This study proposes computational modeling and aerodynamic anal-
ysis of a fan by CFD using the Ansys commercial program (academic version) and OpenFOAM open

source. The computational domain is divided into a rotating and stationary. At interfaces between both,
there is no agreement between the nodes and the elements from one mesh to the other, but the numerical
technique ensures the correct transfer of information. Also incorporated into the codes are the turbulence
models widely reported in the literature. The proposed methodology consists of comparing the responses
in terms of thrust and torque for some operating conditions between both programs, adopting the same
boundary conditions and similar numerical techniques, and verifying the quality of the results.