• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.60-71
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• 2021

Propeller performance measurement system for commercial propeller was designed and applied to the wind tunnel test for 3 commercial propeller models with diameters of 30 inch. The thrust and torque of the propeller was directly measured by using 6-components balance installed on the rotating axis. The measurement system was validated by using wind tunnel balance calibration equipment. Propeller test stand including measurement and rotating system was validated by using QTP propeller. In the hovering condition, we compared the performance test results and the specifications of the commercial propeller provided by the manufacturer and confirmed that there are differences in the thrust and the torque. We measured the propeller performance with various wind speeds, propeller models and angles of attack and was summarized by thrust coefficients. We confirmed that the trend of the thrust coefficients was different in the low angle of attack and high angle of attack. An aerodynamics database that can be used for future aerodynamic design of an unmanned aerial vehicle was secured.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2018

Propeller performance measurement system for high altitude UAV was designed and applied to the wind tunnel test for 2 propeller models with a diameter around 1 m. Mechanical power of the propeller was directly measured by using the torque sensor installed on the rotating axis. The thrust of whole operation body including the propeller was measured by thrust road cell. The guide rail system was suggested to reduce the weight influence of operation body on the thrust road cell. The influence of each measured variables on the aerodynamic coefficients was studied with the repeatability and uncertainty analysis. This analysis result shows that the accuracies of the road cell and the wind velocity were major factors for the thrust coefficient. Propeller performance with typical RPM was measured with various wind speeds and the test results was summarized by performance coefficients for 5 different RPM.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.12
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• pp.1035-1047
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• 2015

Wind tunnel experiment and computational analysis have been carried out to evaluate the performance of propeller for scale electric-powered HALE UAV, named EAV-2H+. Performance curves are measured for three propellers and their adequacy for EAV-2H+ installation is examined through consideration of operating conditions. Decline in performance coefficients is observed in low rpm region. Also, the effect of transition tape on propeller performance is measured and analyzed. The computational performance analyses are carried out by using commercial CFD program. The thrust and power coefficient from computations show good agreement with experimental results. Performance coefficients are compared and the influence of measurement device which contributes to discrepancy of the results is examined. Transition SST model is confirmed to yield the tendency of performance decline in low rpm range, similar to experimental observation. The decrease in aerodynamic performance of blade element due to low Reynolds number is identified to cause the decline in propeller performance. Analyses for high altitude conditions confirms degradation in propeller performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.784-788
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• 2011

Wind tunnel test on 20" class propellers are carried out at KARI's low speed wind tunnel (LSWT). The test was done to select most efficient propeller for middle size electric propulsion UAV of KARI. The propellers are commercially available 20" class folding type propellers made of carbon fiber composite material. As the result, 21"${\times}$15.5" propeller was selected whose efficiency is 66% at cruise condition.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.26-34
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• 2018

Structural static test and the performance test were conducted to determine whether the propeller developed for a multi-copter with the take-off weight of 25 kg satisfies the design requirement. The result of the structural test revealed that the propeller had a safety margin of 3 or more as the ultimate load and requirement load did not cause the specimen breakage. In the performance test, the propeller generated the hover thrust and maximum thrust of design requirement, and hover efficiency in the operating thrust range was greater than 0.73. Maximum hover efficiency increased by more than 3% compared to the reference propeller and electric power consumption decreased by more than 4% in the operating range. The propeller was found to be successfully developed based on the satisfaction rate of the structural strength requirement and the performance requirement.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2018

In this paper, the test facility for coaxial propellers at low Reynolds developed and validated by measured data. The test equipment was designed to measure the hovering performance of propellers according to distances between the upper/lower propellers. Thrust, torque, rotational speed, vibration, and amperage of upper and lower propellers can be measured separately. The data acquisition system was built to collect signals of sensors, and LabVIEW software was used to control the motor and collect the signal. The hover performance tests of single propellers were preceded for the facility validation, and then the performance values of coaxial propellers were measured according to distances and diameter differences between the upper/lower propellers. The results showed that the high efficiency is achieved at 20%~30% distance between the upper propeller and lower one. The configuration that the upper propeller has shorter diameter than the lower one has the highest efficiency than other configuration.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.50-59
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• 1997

Shipbuilder checks the status of main engine and propeller operation before sea trial. Generally these tests are carried out at a quay during fitting out of the ship. For these tests the operator has to estimate the maximum RPM with permissible torque and thrust to ensure the safety of the mooring line and ship. In this paper, the propeller characteristics according to the draft variation for a moored ship is inveatigated. From these tests, it is shown that shaft submergence is a dominant parameter in the propeller performance at shallow shaft submergence and that the propeller performance is dependent upon the propeller RPM when the shaft submergence is kept unchanged. In this study, a simple formula of the required thrust for a given propeller shaft submergence and propeller RPM is derived. 1be propeller thrust, which is calculated by another formula in case of dtep draft, is compared with results of bollard pull test for FPSO.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.112-119
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• 2003

Design analysis and grow1d test on propellers for 50 m-long airship propulsion were conducted. The design analysis code developed by adopting the vortex-blade-element theory was applied to the design of optimum propeller at the condition of maximum flight speed at sea level. In order to validate the performance of the propeller, ground test of the propeller was performed, and thrust and torque were measured for several different pitch angles at static condition. The power coefficients and thrust coefficients obtained by the test compared well with the analysis results.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.193-201
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• 2013

Propeller is an important component of Human Powered Aircraft (HPA) propulsion system. HPA uses large diameter low rotational speed propeller to get high propeller efficiency. The propeller was designed by HPA propeller designing program. The propeller pitch is adjustable by rotating the blade axis angle at ground. Performance of the propeller for various parameters are analysed by the same program used for design. Off-design condition performance was also checked including pilot power change and flight speed change. The propeller was manufactured in ultra-light structure using carbon composite material down to 950g. The propeller was ground tested on ironbird and installed on KARI HPA. Finally the HPA flew 291m with this propeller.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.560-562
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• 2017

This paper presents the development and test results of a test rig for confirming the hover performance of the coaxial propeller which is applied to the drone in order to carry out the mission that requires high payload such as the development of the courier drones. the performance of each propeller was measured by varying the thrust and torque according to the H/D ratio. the Thrust sensor and torque sensor were used to measure the thrust and torque generated when the propeller rotated, and a photo sensor was used to measure the rpm. it used the data acquisition system to acquire data from each sensor, and used the Labview softwaer to control data storage, monitoring and BLDC motor control. In the test, each propeller meansured the figure of mefit according to the chansge of the interval at the same rpm.