Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648

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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jweia

Aerodynamic analysis and static stability analysis of Manned/unmanned

distributed propulsion aircrafts using actuator methods
Dahye Kim a, Yebin Lee b, Sejong Oh a, Youngmin Park c, Jaehoon Choi c, Donghun Park a, *
a
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Pusan National University
b
Republic of Korea Air Force Academy
c
Korea Aerospace Research Institute

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The development of personal aerial vehicles (PAVs) using electric power distributed propulsion methods is
Distributed propulsion aircraft rapidly growing. As the aerodynamic performance and flight stability characteristics can be significantly affected
Urban air mobility by multiple-propeller operation, aerodynamic analysis reflecting the power-on effect is required for design/
Actuator method
development. Simulating all propellers using the general computational fluid dynamics is inefficient in terms of
Power-on effect
Static stability
computational time and cost. Therefore, this study evaluates the practicality of actuator methods in the aero­
Computational fluid dynamics dynamic analysis of two aircrafts with multiple propellers: a quad tilt propeller (QTP) unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) and an optionally piloted personal air vehicle (OPPAV) of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
The normal and side forces generated by the propellers under various angle of attack and sideslip angle con­
ditions are found to be the most contributing factors to the deterioration in the aircraft longitudinal and
directional static stabilities, respectively. The forces and moments generated by the propellers are found to make
both longitudinal and directional stabilities of the QTP UAV unstable. However, the OPPAV appears to remain
stable state even with the operating propellers. We conclude that actuator methods, being computationally
efficient in terms of cost, time, and accuracy, possess great potential for aerodynamic analysis in various related
industries.

for commercialization by 2028 (Electric VTOL News, 2020). In addition,

1. Introduction
With the growing potential demand and interest in urban air
mobility (UAM), research and development on aircrafts that can be used
as personal aerial vehicles (PAVs) and air taxis are being actively con­
ducted (Diaz et al., 2019b; Electric VTOL News, 2019; Gohardani et al.,
2011; Johnson et al., 2018; Yoon et al., 2017). Airbus is conducting
research and development on Vahana and released a prototype of City
Airbus. Bell Helicopter unveiled a real-scale model for Bell Nexus. Not
only aircraft and helicopter manufacturers but also the automotive in­
dustry is actively entering the development of UAM vehicles. Audi is
working with Airbus and Italdesign to develop Pop.Up Next, capable of
both road driving and aerial flight. Hyundai Motor Company has
recently developed S-A1 in cooperation with Uber and announced a plan
various UAM aircrafts such as Ehang and Lillium are about to be
commercialized through development and flight tests.
A majority of UAM aircrafts use the vertical take-off and landing
(VTOL) concept, and with the advancement of electric motor and battery
technologies, the electric power propulsion system is adopted. Owing to
these features, there is no need for a runway and there are no exhaust gas
emissions, making them space-efficient, highly accessible, and eco-
friendly in terms of urban operation. Unlike traditional rotorcrafts that
use a combination of a gas turbine engine and a large rotor, the
distributed propulsion method using multiple small rotors, propellers, or
ducted fans combined with a motor is mainly considered as the pro­
pulsion system for UAM. The electric power distributed propulsion
system provides design versatility and flexibility as multiple propellers
can be arranged relatively freely in various configurations, and it is

Abbreviations: PAV, Personal aerial vehicles; UAM, Urban air mobility; UAV, Unmanned aerial vehicle; VTOL, Vertical take-off landing; KARI, Korea Aerospace
Research Institute; QTP, Quad tilt propeller; OPPAV, Optionally piloted personal air vehicle; CFD, Computational fluid dynamics; ADM, Actuator disk method; ASM,
Actuator surface method; IASM, Improved actuator surface method; LSWT, Low-speed wind tunnel; CG, Center of gravity; NP, Neutral point; CW, Clockwise; CCW,
Counter-clockwise.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: parkdh@pusan.ac.kr (D. Park).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2021.104648
Received 29 October 2020; Received in revised form 4 May 2021; Accepted 4 May 2021
Available online 25 May 2021
0167-6105/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
D. Kim et al.
Nomenclature
α Angle of attack
β Sideslip angle
U∞ Freestream velocity
CL Lift coefficient
CD Drag coefficient
CP Pressure coefficient
CT Thrust coefficient
CQ Torque coefficient
CN Normal force coefficient
CY Side force coefficient
Cm Pitching moment coefficient
Cn Yawing moment coefficient
advantageous in terms of noise reduction because of its small-sized
blades with a low tip Mach number. It is also useful for flying with
optimal aerodynamic performance and efficiency by flexibly responding
to various flight conditions such as hovering, transition, and forward
flights as the operating rotational speed range is wider than that of a
turbine engine and the propellers at various locations can be controlled
individually. In addition, as a large number of propellers are used, it is
relatively advantageous in terms of safety in various situations such as
malfunction of a specific motor. Therefore, the electric power distrib­
uted propulsion system is drawing much attention as an eco-friendly
propulsion system of the next-generation UAM vehicles, and it is ex­
pected to be commonly applied to various flight vehicles from small and
mid-sized airplanes to PAVs (Brelje and Martins, 2019; Gohardani et al.,
2011; Kim et al., 2018; Wall and Meyer, 2017).
A complex flow field is formed around a distributed propulsion
aircraft owing to the wake and tip vortex generated by a number of
propellers. The aerodynamic performance of the aircraft can be signif­
icantly affected by the mutual interference between the propeller flow
and the aircraft components such as fuselage and wings. Moreover, if the
direction of the incoming flow (or freestream) does not coincide with the
rotational axis of the propellers, in addition to thrust and torque, forces
and moments in other directions are generated by the propellers because
of the inflow asymmetry. The forces and moments in the three axial
directions generated by multiple propellers can have a significant
impact on the longitudinal and directional flight stabilities of a distrib­
uted propulsion aircraft by contributing to the moments in an undesired
direction. Therefore, from the early stage of design, the effects of mul­
tiple propellers on the aerodynamic performance and flight stability
should be considered properly.
Therefore, for the development of a distributed propulsion aircraft,
aerodynamic analysis and performance prediction that can appropri­
ately take into account the propeller power-on effect are crucial. How­
ever, predicting the effects of multiple propellers using fast aerodynamic
analysis methods such as semi-empirical methods or panel methods
which are low-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has limita­
tions in terms of accuracy. On the other hand, the simulation of all
propellers using the overset mesh (Reel and Baltadjiev, 2018) or sliding
mesh method (Diaz et al., 2019a) through high-fidelity CFD is
time-consuming and computationally expensive, and there are limita­
tions in its application to the exploration of design variables and
parameter studies in the initial design stage. Actuator methods, which
are mid-fidelity CFD, are a representative alternative to compromise
between the computational cost and accuracy for numerical analysis of
flow including rotary wings. The actuator disk method (ADM) (Sørensen
and Myken, 1992; Sørensen and Kock, 1995; Le Chuiton, 2004), the
actuator line method (ALM) (Sørensen and Shen, 2002; Draper et al.,
2018), and the actuator surface method (ASM) (Dobrev et al., 2007) are
well-known examples. These methods can significantly reduce the
2
Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
analysis time because they simulate the propeller or rotor effect by
adding a momentum source to the cells corresponding to the virtual disk
or blade area. In wind turbine engineering and related industry, the
actuator methods have been widely used to predict performances and
reproduce the wake flow field and validated through comparison with
high-fidelity CFD and experiments (AbdelSalam and Ramalingam, 2014;
Micallef et al., 2020). As actuator methods have a greater advantage of
saving computational cost with the increase in the number of propellers,
they are also gaining interest as a useful technique that can quickly
perform aerodynamic analysis of the full configuration of distributed
propulsion aircrafts with multiple propellers. There have been several
research efforts to modify and improve the actuator methods for the use
in aeronautical engineering and applied to predict the aerodynamic
performance of aircrafts with propeller/rotor (Kim et al., 2015; Roh
et al., 2020). Researches related to propeller modeling and its applica­
tion are being actively conducted not only in aeronautical engineering
but also in other fields, such as naval and marine engineering (De Luca
et al., 2018; Tokgoz et al., 2014).
In this study, the practicality and validity of actuator methods, as a
rapid analysis technique, are evaluated for the aerodynamic analysis of
aircrafts with multiple propellers. The validity of the ADM and improved
ASM (IASM) for the three-axial components of the forces and moments
of propellers and the interference between the propeller wake and wing
were examined first by using benchmark problems. These methods are
applied to perform the aerodynamic analysis of two distributed pro­
pulsion aircrafts for various angle of attack and sideslip angle condi­
tions. Based on the results, the longitudinal and directional static
stabilities of the two different distributed propulsion aircrafts and the
power-on effect on the stabilities are investigated. The main causes and
factors of the deterioration in stability due to the operation of propellers
were examined in each aircraft, by comparing and analyzing the forces
and moments of the propellers that contribute to the pitching and
yawing moments of the aircrafts. The reliability and efficiency of the
actuator methods for the aerodynamic analysis of the aircrafts with
multiple propellers were evaluated through comparison with available
experimental and numerical results and through the review of the
computational cost. The aim of this study is to lay the groundwork for
useful and practical application of the actuator methods in rapid aero­
dynamic and performance analyses in the development of various
distributed propulsion aircrafts and in other related industries.
Apart from conventional aircrafts, former studies in which a nu­
merical analysis is performed on a full-configuration of distributed
propulsion flight vehicle with multiple tilt propellers and the power-on
effect on flight stability is investigated from the results are rather rare.
Moreover, the present study possesses novelty in that the three axial
components of force and moment generated from each propeller and the
wake interference under various angle of attack and sideslip angle
conditions are reflected properly to the results through the application
of a reliable actuator methods. From the investigation on the analysis
results, the main factors affecting the flight static stability of flight ve­
hicles with multiple propellers are identified and issues and information
those can be reflected in the design and development of various PAVs
and UAVs in the near future are provided. In addition, the consumed
computational costs confirms that the analysis method of the present
study is very useful for engineering purposes in the rapidly growing
UAM industries.
Chapter 2 of the present paper briefly describes the actuator methods
used in this study and introduces the validation and reliability of the
methods through two benchmark problems that should be essentially
taken into account when evaluating the power-on effect of a propeller on
an aircraft. This chapter also presents the information on the geometries
of the two aircrafts investigated in this study, computational grids,
analysis conditions, and numerical methods. Chapter 3 presents the re­
sults of the numerical analysis and the detailed investigation on the
characteristics of the static stability of the aircrafts. For each aircraft, the
pitching moment and the longitudinal stability are analyzed based on
D. Kim et al.
the results with respect to the angle of attack. In addition, the yawing
moment and the directional stability are analyzed and discussed based
on the results with respect to the sideslip angle. Chapter 4 briefly pre­
sents the conclusions and expected effects.
2. Methods of analysis
2.1. Numerical method
2.1.1. Actuator methods
Actuator methods have been mainly studied and utilized in the field
of wind turbines and wind engineering (Breton et al., 2010; Leclerc and
Masson, 2005; Mikkelsen, 2003), but many studies have recently been
{ }
→ → → c
d F = d F n + d F t = fdistribution ρV 2 (Cl cosαrel − Cd sinαrel )→
n n + (Cl sinαrel + Cd cosαrel )→
2
carried out on their application to aircraft propellers and rotors (Dobrev
et al., 2007; Kim and Park, 2013; Tadghighi, 2001). Kim et al. (2015)
suggested the IASM and constructed a flow solver combining the ADM
and the IASM in OpenFOAM (see Ref.), an open-source CFD code, and
applied it to the rotor problem to confirm its effectiveness. As compared
to the conventional ASM, the IASM alleviates a non-uniqueness in choice
of the reference line location and improves accuracy in both aero­
dynamic performance and flow field results. The research group of the
present authors has further modified the IASM to improve accuracy and
used it for aerodynamic analysis and performance analysis of various
rotorcrafts (Lee et al., 2018; Roh et al., 2018, 2020). Actuator methods
do not require the generation of a body-fitted grid including surface
mesh for blades. Instead, by replacing blade effects with the addition of a
momentum source to the cells in the disk area or the blade area, the total
number of grids and the time taken for pre-processing and numerical
analysis are reduced. For these cells, the source term (→ s , Eq. (2)) is
calculated from the blade element theory using the momentum equation
(Eq. (1)). Details on the ADM and IASM used in this study can be found
in the previous literature (Kim et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2018, 2020; Roh
et al., 2020).
→ through comparison with wind tunnel test data and full CFD results for a
ρ
DU →
+ (μ + μt )∇2 U = − ∇p + →
s (1)
Dt
→ F=
dF
→
s =
dV
→
For both ADM and ASM, the elemental force (d F ) is basically
determined based on the blade element theory, and is composed of the
components in the direction perpendicular and tangential to the rotor
disk plane. In the ADM, the elemental force, expressed as Eq. (3), rep­
resents the averaged effect of the whole rotor/propeller over one revo­
lution. The elemental force is evaluated and imposed at each cell of the
disk area. The αrel represents the angle between the local relative ve­
locity vector and the disk plane. As the quasi-steady state is analyzed,
the ADM has higher numerical stability and relatively less computa­
tional time than the ASM.
{ }
→ → → Nb c
d F = d F n + d F t = → ρV 2 (Cl cosαrel − Cd sinαrel )→
n n + (Cl sinαrel + Cd cosαrel )→
4π | r |
Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
On the other hand, the elemental force for the ASM, which is
expressed as Eq. (4), represents the effect of each sectional blade
element of an individual blade at every time step. For each blade section,
the elemental force is properly distributed along the chord by using the
chordwise distribution function, fdistribution. In this study, a pre-defined
piecewise linear function with the maximum value at the quarter
chord is used for the chordwise distribution function (Kim et al., 2015).
The elemental force is evaluated and imposed at each cell on the blade
region only. As the effects of individual blades are taken into account,
the ASM can simulate the flow including the unsteady wake downstream
of the rotor or propeller.
n t dA (4)
The aerodynamic performance (Cl and Cd) of the blade element at a
desired angle of attack is determined from the airfoil data look-up table,
which is constructed in advance in the C81 format. The airfoil data were
obtained through independently conducted 2D unsteady CFD analysis.
The IASM adopts an additional correction procedure to improve the
prediction of the incoming relative velocity vector so that it can reflect
the three-dimensional effect of the blade. Based on configuring the
virtual vortex lattice system for the blade, internal iterations are carried
out to extract the effective relative incoming velocity vector for each
section by correcting the velocity at the pre-defined reference line. This
correction procedure enables a more arbitrary choice of the reference
line location and eliminates the need for the tip loss function, which is
the general characteristic of the ASM (Kim et al., 2015).
The total force and moment vector produced by propellers/rotors
can be calculated by summating all contributions from the cells on the
disk plane or blade elements, as conceptually expressed in Eq. (5). The
three-axial components of the force and moment can be easily obtained
by the inner product with a unit vector in each direction. In a separate
previous study, the authors confirmed the validity of the method
single propeller (Lee et al., 2020).
{ }
→ ∑( → →) → ∑ → ( → →) →
d F n + d F t and M = r × d F n + d F t + dM airfoil (5)
(2)
For regions other than the blade or disk region, the Reynolds-
averaged Navier–Stokes equations are numerically solved for incom­
pressible, steady (ADM) or unsteady (IASM) flow based on the PIMPLE
(PISO + SIMPLE) solver provided by OpenFOAM. The second-order
backward discretization is chosen for time integration, and the
second-order scheme is used for spatial discretization of both inviscid
flux and viscous terms. The time step size for the unsteady calculation
was set as the time interval for the propeller to rotate 1◦ of the azimuth
angle. The k–ω SST model was used as the turbulence model with the
default ω wall function implemented in OpenFOAM. Throughout this
study, all analysis cases using actuator methods were performed in
parallel using 40 CPU cores of Intel Xeon E5-2640v4 2.4 GHz.
n t dA (3)
3
D. Kim et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648

Fig. 1. (a) Geometry and (b) meshes for QTP single propeller case.

(UAV) developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) was

Table 1
selected as the reference case. Validation was carried out for a single
Specification of QTP single propeller.
propeller by comparing the analysis results with wind tunnel test data
Diameter [m] No. of blades No. of airfoil Rotational speed [RPM] and full CFD results using the overset mesh method (Lee et al., 2020). In
1.1 3 4 (SFXX series) 1800 the ASM analysis, the analysis geometry consists of only three blades
without connecting rods and a nacelle, as shown in Fig. 1a. The nacelle
geometry was simplified into an axisymmetric body from the actual
2.1.2. Validation of actuator methods geometry of the measuring device used in the wind tunnel test, by
In order to apply the actuator methods to the static stability analyses omitting the support strut and the air intake. Table 1 lists the geometric
of distributed propulsion aircrafts, it is necessary to obtain not only the parameters and the specifications of the propeller. Fig. 1b illustrates the
propeller thrust and torque but also other components of forces and meshes used for the analysis of the QTP single propeller. A body-fitted
moments under various inflow conditions with adequate accuracy. To grid with y+ of approximately 30–50 was created for the nacelle sur­
this end, the propeller used in the quad tilt propeller (QTP) (Cho et al., face to accompany the ω wall function. Ordered hexahedral cells were
2018; Hwang et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2017) unmanned aerial vehicle generated for the region around the propeller disk. The total number of

Fig. 2. Results of the actuator methods for the QTP single-propeller case: (a) example of the iso-Q surface from the IASM analysis, (b) x-axis force and moment and
(c) y-axis force and moment.

4
D. Kim et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648

volume cells is 5.12 × 106. The time step size is chosen as 9.259259 × Table 2
10− 5 s; this corresponds to the time required for a 1◦ rotation of the Specifications of propeller in propeller-wing model case.
propeller blade. Further details on the computational setup and nu­ Diameter [m] No. of blades No. of airfoil Rotational speed [RPM]
merical method can be found in Lee et al. (2020). Lee et al. (2020) also
0.236 4 1 (Clark Y) 14800
examined and discussed the accuracy of ASM and computational effi­
ciency for the analysis of the performance (i.e., three-component forces
and moments) of the QTP single propeller.
Fig. 2a shows an example result of the IASM analysis for a single Table 3
Results of grid dependency test for propeller-wing model case.
propeller for the case of forward flight condition at a collective pitch
angle of 15◦ and a wind speed of 15 m/s. The flow field around the Grid No. of cells Time(h) Prop. C T, Diff (%) Wing C L, Diff (%)
propeller is visualized by using several streamlines and an iso-Q surface, Fine 14.8 × 10 6
22 h – –
which are colored with respect to velocity magnitude. It is clearly seen Medium 9.8 × 106 14 h 1.60% 1.82%
from the figure that the tip vortices are generated in the vicinity of the Coarse 6.3 × 106 8h 2.63% 6.13%
blade tips and convect downstream along spiral trajectories. With the
collective pitch angle and the wind speed fixed at 15◦ and 15 m/s,
To examine the grid dependency in terms of results, a grid conver­
respectively, the three components of the force and moment of the
gence study is carried out by using three levels of grids with different
propeller with respect to the angle of sideslip were compared. The re­
spatial resolutions. Table 3 summarizes the total number of cells,
sults of the IASM and CFD are consistent with wind tunnel testing data in
computational time, and results corresponding to the three grid levels.
a thrust-torque diagram (Fig. 2b), confirming the validity of the results
The difference in the thrust coefficient of the propeller and lift coeffi­
for basic performance. As the ADM modeled the propeller as a disk
cient of the wing is found to be less than 2% for the results from the fine
plane, the predictability deteriorated slightly under high-sideslip angle
and medium grids. Considering the computational cost for analysis of
conditions. The side force and the pitching moment (y-directional force
the many cases considered, the medium grid was selected.
and moment) were found to be generated at levels that are comparable
By using both ADM and IASM, the analyses were carried out for the
to the thrust and torque as the sideslip angle increased (Fig. 2c). On the
conditions of an angle of attack of 4◦ and a wind speed of 49.5 m/s. Both
other hand, the magnitudes of the normal force and yawing moment (z-
clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise (CCW) directions of propeller
directional force and moment) according to the sideslip angle appeared
rotation are considered. The example results of the IASM analysis for the
to be rather insignificant. The comparison of the results presented in
case of counter-clockwise rotation are shown in Fig. 4a. The flow field is
Fig. 2 with the more detailed results given in the previous study (Lee
visualized with several streamlines and an iso-Q surface. Again, the re­
et al., 2020) confirmed that the actuator methods provide reasonable
gion of the propeller wake and four blade tip vortices can be clearly
results for all components of the force and moment. The results also
identified in the figure. The contour of the pressure coefficient over the
suggest the possibility that the additional forces or moments generated
wing clearly exhibits a locally low-pressure region on the suction side
by the propellers will generate a considerable level of unwanted moment
surface of the wing around the upwash region of the propeller wake. The
on the distributed propulsion aircraft under the conditions of the angle
distributions of the sectional normal force coefficient of the wing along
of attack or sideslip angle.
the span according to the presence or absence of the propeller and the
To verify the applicability of the actuator methods in the case where
direction of rotation were compared in Fig. 4b together with the
the propeller wake flow affects the wing or fuselage, the propeller-wing
experimental data. The comparison of the results shows a clear change
configuration that was examined in a previous experimental study
in the normal force distribution due to the influence of the propeller
(Veldhuis, 2004) was considered. Detailed information on the geome­
wake. The normal force distributions under the influence of propeller
tries and conditions can also be found in the reference literature (Tai
wake for both rotational directions (CW and CCW) show reasonable
et al., 2021), in which numerical analysis was performed using a panel
agreements between the analysis results and the experimental data. For
method for the same configuration. Fig. 3a shows the geometry of the
both ADM and IASM results, the change in the tendency according to the
propeller-wing configuration model; the geometry was simplified by
direction of the propeller rotation is also in good agreement with the
excluding the nacelle for convenience. Table 2 presents the geometry
experimental data, again confirming that the actuator methods
information of the propeller. Fig. 3b shows the generated mesh around
adequately simulate the wake flow field. Specifically, the IASM results
the model. The time step size for this propeller-wing case was set to be
seem to show less agreement with the experimental data than the ADM
2.2514 × 10− 5 s; this corresponds to the time interval for 2◦ rotation of
results. Further investigations on the results confirmed that IASM is
the propeller.
slightly less accurate in predicting the magnitude of the swirling velocity

Fig. 3. (a) Configuration and (b) meshes for propeller-wing model case (Veldhuis, 2004).

5
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 4. Results of the actuator methods for the wing-propeller configuration: (a) example of flow visualization in the IASM analysis and (b) comparison of the
distribution of the sectional normal force coefficient.
Fig. 5. (a) QTP UAV during hovering and (b) geometry and surface mesh of the QTP UAV.
component in the downstream wake compared with the complete CFD
and experiment. The arbitrariness in the distribution of the momentum
source in the tangential direction along the chord was found to con­
tributes to this accuracy issue. Consequently, less accurate prediction of
the swirling velocity results in slight over-prediction in the sectional
normal force coefficient in a certain region where the influence of the
propeller swirling wake is the strongest. However, in terms of aero­
dynamic performance, the difference is not significant. The total normal
force of the wing obtained from two actuator methods exhibited a dif­
ference of only approximately 1%. Because we focus on the qualitative
characteristic of directional and longitudinal stability for distributed
propulsion aircraft and the efficiency of the actuator method, the small
discrepancies between the IASM and ADM results can be regarded as a
minor issue in the viewpoint of the purpose of the present study.
2.2. Geometry and computational grid
2.2.1. Quad tilt propeller unmanned aerial vehicle
QTP (Cho et al., 2018; Hwang et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2017) UAV is
developed in KARI by applying the tilt-rotor technology acquired
through the development of the Smart UAV (TR-100) (Choi et al., 2005;
Koo, 2013) to obtain basic technology related to a distributed propulsion
aircraft. Fig. 5a shows the QTP UAV in the hovering mode during the
flight test. Fig. 5b illustrates the geometry under the forward flight
condition to be analyzed, surface mesh, and volume mesh corresponding
to the disk region. It consists of fuselage, vertical tail, and front and rear
wings with a total of four propellers mounted at the end of the wings.
The length of the fuselage and span of the rear wing are 1.89 and 2.2 m,
respectively. The reference length and area are 0.305 m and 0.629 m2,
these correspond to the mean aerodynamic chord and planform area of
the rear wing, respectively. The geometry of the propeller is the same as
6
Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
described in Sec. 2.1.2 (Table 1), except for the diameter is being
different. The tip of the blade is cut out by 2 cm so that the diameter is
1.06 m. The tip Mach number is approximately 0.3, for which the
approximation of the incompressible flow can be regarded as reason­
able. A former study conducted by Lee et al. (2019) can be referenced for
detailed specifications of the QTP and blade geometry.
In order to evaluate the power-on effect of the QTP UAV, both the
airframe configuration only (unpowered model) excluding the pro­
pellers and the complete aircraft configuration (powered model)
including the propellers were analyzed. For the analysis of longitudinal
stability with respect to the angle of attack, as the sideslip angle is 0◦ , a
computational grid was generated for half of the aircraft based on the
center plane of symmetry, and the analysis was performed by applying
the symmetry boundary condition. On the other hand, for the analysis of
directional stability with respect to the sideslip angle, a grid was
generated for the full geometry. The computational domain of a hexa­
hedron shape was considered, and the distance to the far boundary was
set to be sufficiently large approximately 30 times the length of the
aircraft. In order to resolve the viscous boundary layer on the wall, a
total of 14 layers composed of hexahedron and prism cells were stacked.
The height of the first cell from the wall was set to y+ ≈ 45 so that the ω
wall function is properly applied as the wall boundary condition for
turbulence properties. The propeller disk area was composed of ordered
hexahedral cells, and the remaining region inside the computational
domain was filled with unstructured, hybrid meshes. The total number
of volume cells for the half geometry and full geometry is approximately
9.5 × 106 and 19.3 × 106, respectively.
2.2.2. Optionally piloted personal aerial vehicle
Next, the optionally piloted PAV (OPPAV) (Choi et al., 2018b), for
which KARI is designing and developing prototypes for the purpose of
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 6. (a) Concept of OPPAV and (b) geometry and surface mesh for analysis.
Table 4
Specification of OPPAV propeller.
Diameter [m] No. of blades No. of airfoil Rotational speed [RPM]
1.5 3 7 (ClarkY series) 1650
developing fundamental technologies related to future personal aircraft,
was analyzed. Fig. 6 shows the concept of OPPAV, its geometry, and the
surface mesh for the analysis. The length of the fuselage and the span of
the main wing are 6.152 and 7 m, respectively. The reference length and
area of OPPAV are 1.013 m and 7 m2, these correspond to the mean
chord and planform area of the main wing, respectively. Two nacelles
are installed on each side of the main wing. Each nacelle is equipped
with a tiltable propeller at the front side and a fixed propeller for hov­
ering flight at the rear side. Table 4 presents the specifications of the
tiltable propeller at the front. The blade has a nonlinear twist of 35.55◦
with taper, and the solidity of the propeller is 0.1086. The Mach number
at the tip is approximately 0.38. The main purpose of the present study is
to analyze the interaction between the wake of the propeller and the
airframe of the aircraft under a forward flight condition. Thus, the
landing gear, which is expected to be hardly affected by the propeller
wake, and the rear propellers aligned in the flight direction during
forward flight were omitted from the analysis configuration to reduce
the pre-processing and calculation time.
The power-on effect is analyzed by conducting the analysis with and
without propellers. Similar to the QTP UAV, only the half geometry is
considered for the cases of the nonzero angles of attack, and the full
geometry is considered for the cases of nonzero sideslip angle. The
computational grid is generated, and the generation criteria are similar
to those used for the QTP UAV case. A body-fitted grid with y+ of 100
was created to accompany the ω wall function. Ordered hexahedral cells
are generated for the region around the propeller disk area. The total
numbers of cells for the half and full geometries are approximately 8.9
× 106 and 18.5 × 106, respectively.
2.3. Analysis conditions
During the forward flight of the QTP UAV, the Reynolds number
based on the mean aerodynamic chord of the rear wing is approximately
8.76 × 105 under the cruise condition. The angle of attack was 4.33◦ ,
and the collective pitch angle of both front/rear propellers was 29.4◦
under the cruise condition. The rotational speed of the propeller was
1800 RPM. The time step size was set as 9.259 × 10− 5 s. The analysis
under this condition shows a lift force of approximately 475.5 N, which
corresponds to a difference smaller than 1% from the weight of the
vehicle, 470.9 N. In addition, the drag of the aircraft was found to be
43.58 N, and the summation with the thrust component generated by
the propeller yields about − 1.03 N, which indicates a difference within
3% from the aircraft drag. In order to analyze the power-on effect, the
analyses were performed for both unpowered and powered models. To
evaluate the longitudinal stability, we analyzed the angle of attack in the
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
range from − 8◦ to 8◦ for the unpowered model and the angle of attack in
the range from − 4◦ to 6◦ for the powered model. At a cruise angle of
attack of 4.33◦ , the sideslip angle in the range from − 8◦ to 8◦ was
analyzed to examine the directional stability.
The analysis condition for the OPPAV was set to the level flight
condition at a Reynolds number of approximately 3.08 × 106 based on
the mean aerodynamic chord of the main wing. This condition corre­
sponds to the end of the transition flight phase through tilting of the
front propeller, with additional acceleration required to reach the cruise
condition. To achieve this condition, an angle of attack of 4.84◦ , a col­
lective pitch angle of 26.20◦ , and a rotational speed of the propeller of
1650 RPM are considered as the operating condition. The time step size
was 1.0101 × 10− 4 s. The analysis under this condition yielded a lift of
6380.43 N, indicating a difference of smaller than approximately 0.1%,
as compared to the aircraft design weight of 6376.5 N. It is confirmed
that the propeller thrust is greater than the aircraft drag, indicating that
the aircraft is in the state of being accelerating with net thrust. In order
to investigate the longitudinal stability, the angle of attack in the range
from − 8◦ to 12◦ was analyzed, and the static stability was evaluated in
the vicinity of the angle of attack corresponding to the level flight
condition (4.84◦ ). At the angle of attack of the level flight condition, the
sideslip angle in the range from − 8◦ to 8◦ was analyzed to examine the
directional stability.
In the analysis of both aircrafts, the forces and moments in all di­
rections generated by the airframe (wing and fuselage) itself and by each
propeller were individually monitored and recorded for the powered
model, and the total moment exerted on the complete configuration was
then analyzed by reflecting all of their contributions.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Quad tilt propeller unmanned aerial vehicle
Fig. 7 shows an example of the IASM results for the case of an angle of
attack of 4.33◦ . The variation of the normal and axial forces of the
airframe of the QTP UAV during the two revolutions of the propeller
(Fig. 7a), airframe surface colored with respect to pressure coefficient,
and iso-Q surface (Fig. 7b) are depicted. Fig. 7a shows the variations in
the aerodynamic performance during the time interval corresponding to
two revolutions of the propellers. Three periodic changes per one rev­
olution are clearly seen, indicating that the rotation of the three blades
causes the periodic fluctuating change in the aerodynamic performance.
In Fig. 7b, we readily see the tip vortex and wake generated by the
blades, and the propeller wake periodically reaches the wing and the
airframe, causing mutual aerodynamic interference. The results indicate
that the peak-to-peak amplitude of the normal force fluctuation caused
by the propeller wake is found to be approximately 11 N, which is
confirmed to be approximately 2.3% of the weight of the QTP aircraft.
The average value for the last revolution of the propellers after the
analysis of 10 revolutions is determined as the aerodynamic perfor­
mance results of the IASM analysis. From the preliminary analysis,
where more than 30 revolutions were performed for a specific case, the
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 7. Example results of the QTP UAV case: (a) history of aerodynamic forces of airframe and (b) pressure coefficient on airframe surface and iso-Q surface.
Fig. 8. CG and positions of propeller disk center in the x–z plane.
Fig. 9. Pitching moment coefficient of the QTP aircraft with experimental data.
equilibrium state is found to be already reached after 10 revolutions for
the flight condition considered in this study (Fig. 7a). For the half ge­
ometry, it takes approximately 20 and 8 h in CPU time using the IASM
and ADM, respectively, which means that the analysis can be performed
with considerable efficiency, as compared to the CFD analysis using the
sliding mesh or overset mesh method. In the authors’ previous studies,
the analysis using the IASM took less than 3% of the computational time
required for the full CFD analysis when the same level of the grid res­
olution was used except for the propeller region. This is expected to
enable the aerodynamic analysis and interpretation, including unsteady
wake effects, within a practical and feasible time range, in aeronautical
engineering or applications in other industrial aerodynamics.
3.1.1. Longitudinal stability
For longitudinal stability, the geometry of the QTP UAV is illustrated
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
Fig. 10. Wind tunnel test of QTP model in open-jet test section of KARI LSWT.
in Fig. 8. The reference point for the overall pitching and yawing mo­
ments is defined as the center of gravity (CG). The front propeller is
located in the lower front of the CG, and the rear propeller is located in
the higher rear of the CG. In this figure, the arrow means the positive
direction of forces and moments. The vertical distance from the CG to
the center of the two propellers is the same, and the horizontal distance
to the rear propeller is approximately half of the distance to the front
propeller.
Fig. 9 shows the results of the pitching moment coefficient with
respect to the angle of attack together with the wind tunnel test data.
The wind tunnel test was conducted in the KARI low-speed wind tunnel
(LSWT) with an open-jet test section. The cross-section area of the test
section is 5.0 × 3.75 m. The maximum speed and turbulence intensity
are 75 m/s and 0.3%, respectively. The uncertainty in flow angularity is
0.2◦ . The test model with the real scale was used, and was designed to
assemble both front and rear wings. The assembly tolerance of both
wings is approximately less than 0.5◦ in terms of the incline angle. The
six-components of the aerodynamic forces and moments were measured
by using a balance system that was specially designed and carefully
calibrated. The balance system adapts two six-component load cells,
HBM MSC 10. Through the calibration, the statistical error in the
measured normal force and pitching moment coefficients were identi­
fied to be 0.0021 and 0.0001, respectively. The accuracy and resolution
of the balance system follow the specification of the load cell employed.
A support strut was used to connect the test model and balance system as
a belly-sting type. Fig. 10 shows the QTP test model, experimental
configuration, and setup. The results were obtained by averaging the
recorded signal for 10 s at each condition. Further details of the exper­
imental setup can be referred in Kim et al. (2019). To compare with the
measurement data and results of actuator methods, full CFD analysis is
additionally conducted by using Fluent, a commercial CFD code. The
D. Kim et al.
numerical calculations were carried out based on incompressible
Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. A pressure-based solver
with the semi-implicit method for the pressure-linked equation algo­
rithm for pressure-velocity coupling was chosen. The k–ω SST model is
used as the turbulence model and the second-order scheme is chosen for
time integration and spatial discretization of all variables.
For the unpowered model, the results from Fluent are compared as
well. For comparison with the test data, the analysis results for the half
geometry are doubled in consideration of the symmetry. The longitu­
dinal stability was evaluated through the pitching moment for both the
powered model and the unpowered model. First, the comparison of the
analysis results for the unpowered model (IASM and Fluent) confirms
the validity of the OpenFOAM flow solver, which is combined with the
IASM. The unpowered model exhibits a negative sign of the pitching
moment slope near the cruising angle of attack, confirming that it is
longitudinally stable. On the other hand, for the powered model, the
slope of the pitching moment appears to be positive, indicating that the
longitudinal stability was changed to an unstable state because of the
operation of the propellers. Therefore, the power-on effect of the pro­
pellers has a significant influence on the static stability and may dete­
riorate the longitudinal stability. The wind tunnel test data and analysis
results show quantitative differences for both the unpowered model and
the powered model. For the powered model, the test data exhibit larger
pitching moment than the analysis results, but the tendencies of changes
in the pitching moment and slope according to the angle of attack are
similar. For the unpowered model, not only the magnitude of the
pitching moment but also the slope is different. Although the test data
also show longitudinal stability, the absolute value of the slope is smaller
than the analysis results.
Additional study and investigations identified that many factors can
lead to quantitative differences in the wind tunnel test data and analysis
results. These include the support strut, a cavity in the test model for
strut connection, differences in detailed geometries such as the presence
of air intake, the uncertainty of the moment reference point in the test,
etc. (Choi et al., 2018a). Moreover, it was identified that, in each test
case, there could exist uncertainty of the wing incidence angle that may
occur in the assembly process of the test model whose wing is designed
for assembly. Nevertheless, throughout the angle of attacks considered
in this study, a clear increase in the pitching moment slope (increased
instability) due to the propeller operation is confirmed in both the test
and analysis results. In order to compare the quantitative level of
change, the slope of the pitching moment in the vicinity of the cruising
angle of attack (4.33◦ ) indicated by the vertical dashed line in the figure
was simply computed by using numerical differentiation. The test data
changed from − 0.48 to 2.02 owing to the propeller operation, showing
an increase of 2.50 (ΔMα≈2.50 [Nm/◦ ]), and the analysis result changed
from − 0.60 to 1.93, showing an increase in the slope of 2.53 (ΔMα≈2.53
[Nm/◦ ]). The result indicates that the IASM is capable of quantitative
prediction of the change in the pitching moment slope due to the
Fig. 11. Pitching moment coefficient of the QTP aircraft.
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
power-on effect.
Fig. 11 shows the pitching moment coefficients of the QTP UAV by its
components from the IASM results. When comparing the results of the
airframe of the powered model and unpowered model, we see that the
power-on effect causes the pitching moment of the airframe to shift
downwards throughout the angle of attack of interest. In other words,
the operation of the propellers enhances the nose-down pitching
moment. The tendency and slope with respect to the angle of attack
remain almost unchanged so that the airframe itself procures stability
regardless of the operation of the propellers. On the other hand, it can be
seen that the pitching moment at the CG of the QTP UAV produced by
the propellers increases with the angle of attack, and accordingly, the
pitching moment of the entire aircraft (powered model) also changes to
a slope corresponding to an unstable state. Therefore, we can conclude
that the propellers have a significant effect on the longitudinal stability
of the QTP aircraft and may deteriorate it. Fig. 12 represents the normal
force and pitching moment of the front and rear wing with and without
the power-on effect extracted from the IASM results. The results indicate
that the power-on effect results in a decrease in both the normal force
and the pitching moment of the front wing over the entire range of
angles of attack considered. By contrast, the power-on effect appears to
mainly lead to a change in the slope of the normal force and pitching
moment of the rear wing. However, the changes in the normal force and
pitching moment of both wings owing to the power-on effect do not
seem significant enough to result in considerable changes in the slope of
the total pitching moment. Based on the results of the analysis on the
half geometry, the contribution of each propeller is analyzed in detail.
The thrust coefficient of the front and rear propellers and the pitching
moment coefficient caused by these thrusts to the CG are plotted in
Fig. 13. As the thrust of the rear propeller is affected by the wake from
the front propeller and wing (Lee et al., 2018), the thrust of the two
propellers is not the same despite the same operating conditions.
Therefore, despite that the front and rear propellers have the same
moment arm, the pitching moment does not cancel out due to the dif­
ference in thrust and results in an unstable slope. However, as the
moment arm is very short, the magnitude of the resultant pitching
moment appears to be almost negligible.
Fig. 14 shows a comparison of the normal force coefficient of the
front and rear propellers and the pitching moment coefficient at the CG
due to this normal force. The former study by Lee et al. (2018) confirmed
that the wake flow of the front propeller causes an increase in upwash
and effective angle of attack on a specific spanwise extent of the rear
wing. Based on this observation, the normal force of the rear propeller
can be interpreted to be larger owing to the influence of the induced
velocity generated by the front propeller. The pitching moment due to
the normal force of the front propeller exhibits an unstable slope in
proportion to the normal force, whereas that of the rear propeller shows
a stable slope. Although the rear propeller possesses a larger normal
force, however, the magnitude of the slope of the front propeller is
greater than that of the rear propeller because of the relatively long
moment arm of the front propeller. Thus, the pitching moment due to
the normal force does not cancel out and results in an unstable slope of
the total pitching moment. The magnitude of the pitching moments
generated by the normal force of the propellers is significantly larger
than the pitching moment generated by the thrust described earlier, and
the unstable slope is mainly contributed by the normal force of the
propellers.
Fig. 15 shows the pitching moment coefficient generated by the
propellers themselves (Prop. own) and the moment coefficient gener­
ated by all forces and moments of the propellers (Prop. at CG). We see
from the figure that the pitching moments of the propellers themselves
increase with the angle of attack, and the difference in the value and
slope of the front/rear propeller is caused by the influence of the wake of
the front propeller, wing, and nacelle. As observed from the pitching
moment due to forces (Figs. 13 and 14), the front and rear propellers
contribute either to an unstable or stable slope, and the total pitching
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 12. Aerodynamic performance of front and rear wings: (a) normal force and (b) pitching moment coefficients.
Fig. 13. Thrust coefficient of the propellers and pitching moment coefficient
due to the thrust.
Fig. 14. Normal force coefficient of the propellers and pitching moment coef­
ficient due to the normal force.
moment generated by the propellers appears unstable, as shown in
Fig. 11. The pitching moments due to the normal force of the propellers,
which are responsible for most of the change, are expected to be directly
affected by the relative position of the propeller center to the CG. To
assess the change of longitudinal stability owing to the power-on effect,
the static margin was calculated for both unpowered and powered
model cases. By assuming that a neutral point (NP) lies along the axial
line passing the CG, five axial locations(x/L = 0.1852, 0.2646, 0.4976,
0.6349, and 0.7937) along the line were selected as references point for
calculating the pitching moment. Examination of the variation of
pitching moment according to the reference point for several angles of
attack identified the NP at which the pitching moments are independent
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
Fig. 15. Pitching moment coefficient of the propellers and total pitching
moment coefficient.
Fig. 16. CG and positions of propeller disk center in the x–y plane.
of the angle of attack. For the unpowered model, the NP is found to be x/
L = 0.5099 which is aft of the CG. On the other hand, the NP moves to x/
L = 0.4899 which is in front of the CG owing to the operation of the
propellers. The static margin is defined as the distance from the CG to
the NP as a percentage of the mean aerodynamic chord and a positive
value of static margin represents the statically stable state. For con­
ventional fixed-wing aircrafts, the typical value of the static margin is
known to be in the range between 5% and 10% (Raymer, 1992). From
the analysis result, the static margin of the QTP is found to change from
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 17. Yawing moment coefficient of the QTP aircraft.
7.58% to − 4.79% owing to power-on effect. This indicates that the
longitudinal stability changes into a statically unstable state and the
amount of change of static margin can be regarded as considerable in the
view point of static stability. Considering this, a slight movement of the
CG can have a considerable effect on longitudinal stability. For the QTP
UAV of the present study, the forward shift of the CG is expected to
contribute to reducing the unstable slope. Therefore, when designing
distributed propulsion aircrafts, it seems important to predict and take
into account the changes in the longitudinal stability caused by oper­
ating propellers properly for determining internal arrangement or
positioning of the propellers to prevent the deterioration in-flight sta­
bility and performance degradation due to trim.
3.1.2. Directional stability
Fig. 16 depicts the definition of the sign of the sideslip angle and
yawing moment, the positions of the propeller disk centers, and the
location of the CG. The arrows point in the positive direction of the
forces and moment. The rear propeller is located approximately 1.5
times further in the spanwise direction from the plane of symmetry.
Fig. 17 shows the yawing moment coefficient at the CG from the results
obtained under various sideslip angle conditions. For the unpowered
model, the QTP UAV is almost directionally stable or is in a slightly
stable state at a sideslip angle of 0◦ . The slope of the airframe yawing
moment slightly changes to a positive value owing to the propeller
operation, indicating that the airframe itself becomes stable. However,
the yawing moments generated by the propellers decrease greatly with
respect to the sideslip angle and exhibit negative slopes with large
magnitudes. As a result, the entire aircraft has a yawing moment of an
unstable (negative) slope. Therefore, the results in Fig. 17 clearly
represent that the power-on effect greatly reduces the directional sta­
bility of the QTP UAV.
Fig. 18 shows the thrust coefficient of each propeller (Fig. 18a) and
Fig. 18. Thrust effect of each propeller with respect to sideslip angle: (a) Thrust coefficient and (b) yawing moment coefficient due to the thrust.
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
the yawing moment coefficient due to the thrust (Fig. 18b). In the
sideslip angle range considered, similar levels of thrust are produced by
all four propellers. The asymmetry of thrust indicates that the effects of
the fuselage, wings, and wake of the front propeller are different
depending on the sideslip angle. The thrust is greater for the propellers
on the side of the incoming freestream direction, regardless of being at
the front or rear side. As the moment arms of the left and right propellers
from the plane of symmetry are the same, the yawing moment caused by
the thrust is mostly canceled out, and the overall yawing moment has a
slightly negative slope due to the asymmetry of the thrust, as can be seen
in Fig. 18b. Therefore, the asymmetry of the thrust is revealed as one of
the factors that deteriorate the directional stability of the QTP UAV.
Fig. 19 shows the side force coefficient from each propeller (Fig. 19a)
and the yawing moment coefficients caused by the side force (Fig. 19b).
At a sideslip angle of 0◦ , the side forces of the left and right propellers are
symmetrical, and for the front propeller, a larger side force is observed
due to relatively strong mutual interference with the airframe, which is
closer in distance. The side forces of all propellers appear to change
similarly with respect to the sideslip angle. The front propeller causes an
unstable yawing moment slope as the yawing moment caused by the side
force decreases with the sideslip angle. Conversely, the rear propellers
contribute to a stable yawing moment slope as the yawing moment
caused by the side force increases with the sideslip angle. However, the
absolute value of the slope of the yawing moment is relatively small for
the rear propeller because the moment arm is shorter than that of the
front propeller so that it cannot compensate for the unstable yawing
moment caused by the front propeller. Therefore, the total yawing
moment due to the propeller side force becomes unstable mainly
because of the difference in the moment arms of the front and rear
propellers.
Fig. 20 shows the yawing moment coefficients generated by the
propeller itself (Prop. Own in the figure) and by all forces and moments
from the propeller at the CG (Prop. at CG in the figure). As the left and
right propellers rotate in the opposite directions from each other, the
yawing moments generated by the propellers themselves cancel out each
other in the view point of the entire aircraft. The main reason for the
deterioration in the directional stability of the QTP UAV is appeared to
be the relatively short moment arm of the rear propeller for the side
force. The asymmetry of the thrust is also found to contribute to direc­
tional instability. As in the discussion on longitudinal stability, the
relative position of the centers of the front/rear propellers to the CG has
a great influence on the change in the characteristics of the directional
stability due to the power-on effect.
3.2. Optionally piloted personal aerial vehicle
Following the same approach, the longitudinal and directional sta­
bility characteristics of the OPPAV are analyzed. Fig. 21 illustrates an
example visualization of the IASM results (at both angle of attack and
sideslip angle of 0◦ ), showing the contour of the pressure coefficient over
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 19. Side force effect of each propeller with respect to sideslip angle: (a) Side force coefficient and (b) yawing moment coefficient due to the side force.
Fig. 20. Yawing moment coefficient of the propellers and total yawing
moment coefficient.
Fig. 21. Example result of the OPPAV; aircraft surface colored with respect to
pressure coefficient and iso-Q surface.
the aircraft surface and iso-Q surface. Similar to the case of the QTP UAV
(Fig. 7b), the tip vortex generated by the tip of each blade can be clearly
seen, and the wake flows of the propellers are confirmed to be properly
simulated. The examination of the time history of the aerodynamic
performance of the aircraft exhibits periodic changes of three times per
one revolution of the propellers. Through the further analysis of the
changes in the velocity field and surface pressure distribution over time,
it was confirmed that the unsteady wake is appropriately simulated.
3.2.1. Longitudinal stability
If the propellers are categorized into inner and outer propellers, both
propellers are located at the same distance from the CG to the front and
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Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
Fig. 22. CG and relative positions of propeller disk center in the x–z plane.
Fig. 23. Pitching moment coefficient of the OPPAV.
top, as shown in Fig. 22. The arrows point to the positive direction of
forces and moment. The results of the pitching moment coefficient of the
OPPAV with respect to the angle of attack are plotted in Fig. 23. As the
pitching moment of the airframe decreases with the angle of attack
regardless of the propeller operation, it can be regarded as statically
stable in the longitudinal direction. On the other hand, the pitching
moment due to the propellers increases with the angle of attack and acts
as the main factor deteriorating the stability of the aircraft. However,
despite the decrease in the stability caused by the propellers, the entire
aircraft still remains in a static stable state near the angle of attack
corresponding to the level flight condition. It appears that the horizontal
tail wing has a sufficient distance in the downstream direction and
planform area, providing sufficient stability of the airframe. Moreover,
as the distance from the CG to the propeller center is relatively short, as
compared to the QTP UAV case, the pitching moment generated by the
normal force is not large owing to the short moment arm. For the half
geometry, the analysis of one case took about 30 h using the IASM for 10
D. Kim et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648

Fig. 24. Thrust coefficient of the propellers and pitching moment coefficient Fig. 26. Normal force coefficient of the propellers and pitching moment coef­
due to the thrust. ficient due to the normal force.

revolutions of the propellers and about 14 h using the ADM. As shown in

Fig. 23, the ADM results showed an average error of 4%, as compared to
the IASM results. As the ADM analyzes the quasi-steady state, it is
computationally more efficient than the IASM and seems to provide a
reasonable accuracy of the results in terms of analyzing and evaluating
the static stability. Thus, the ADM is regarded as a useful and practical
method as an engineering tool for the purpose of parameter studies
where analysis of many cases is required. As discussed earlier, as the
IASM also significantly reduces the computational cost, as compared to
the full CFD, it is expected to be useful for detailed analysis of the flow
including unsteady wakes and mutual interference between the
components.
Based on the analysis results for the half geometry, the thrust coef­
ficient of the inner and outer propellers and the pitching moment co­
efficient caused by this thrust are plotted in Fig. 24. The thrust of the
inner propeller is observed to be slightly higher over the entire angle of
attack range. The higher thrust is due to the interference with the Fig. 27. Pitching moment coefficient of the propellers and total pitching
fuselage and wing, and the larger blockage effect on the inner propeller moment coefficient.
close to the fuselage. This can be also confirmed in Fig. 25, which shows
the distribution of the effective angle of attack on the plane of the pro­ Fig. 26 shows the normal force coefficient and the pitching moment
peller disk under the condition of an angle of attack of 0◦ . The thrust coefficient due to the normal force. Likewise, it was analyzed that the
increases with the effective angle of attack in the region close to the difference between the inner and outer propellers is caused by the large
fuselage owing to the blockage effect of the fuselage. As the two pro­ interference with the airframe for the inner propeller. The pitching
pellers have the same vertical distance from the CG, the pitching moment caused by the normal force of the two propellers acts in the
moment caused by the thrust does not cancel out and causes an overall same direction and increases with the angle of attack, causing unstable
nose-down moment over the entire angle of attack range. In the region of characteristics. It can be seen that the pitching moment due to the
positive angles of attack, the pitching moment due to the thrust tends to normal force is the main factor deteriorating the longitudinal stability of
decrease slightly as the angle of attack increases. However, it is not the aircraft. The pitching moment coefficient of the propellers them­
expected to affect the stability characteristics greatly because of the selves (Prop. own) and the pitching moment coefficient due to the thrust
small change in the thrust with respect to the angle of attack. and normal force (Prop. at CG) are compared in Fig. 27. The pitching
moment of the propellers themselves appears to have a relatively

Fig. 25. Contours of the effective angle of attack on disk planes. Fig. 28. Propeller disk position from CG in the x–y plane.

13
D. Kim et al. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648

larger moment arm, the yawing moment caused by the outer propeller
appears to be greater (Fig. 30b). The change in the yawing moment due
to the thrust with respect to the sideslip angle is not very large. However,
due to the asymmetry of the thrust of the propellers on both sides, the
yawing moment is not completely canceled out, and the total yawing
moment results in a negative slope showing an unstable characteristic,
but the magnitude is confirmed to be insignificant.
Fig. 31 shows the side force coefficient and the yawing moment
coefficient due to the side force. At a sideslip angle of 0◦ , the side force of
the left and right propeller appears symmetrical (opposite sign) and
directed outward, and the magnitude of the side force is appeared to be
larger for the outer propeller (Fig. 31a). We note that the propeller
(inner or outer) that generates the greater side force depends on the
angle of attack. As mentioned previously, the results on several sideslip
angles given in this sub-section correspond to the angle of attack for
level flight condition (α = 4.84◦ ). Additional analyses for the angle of
Fig. 29. Yawing moment coefficient of the OPPAV (α = 4.84◦ ).
attack of 0◦ indicated that the inner propeller produces the greater side
force in magnitude. Detailed investigations on the results revealed that it
insignificant effect on stability. Although the thrust of the propellers
is consequences of the different influence of and interference with the
yields a downward shift in the pitching moment over the entire angle of
airframe depending on the angle of attack. All side forces decrease
attack range, the influence on the slope with respect to the angle of
similarly with an increase in the sideslip angle (Fig. 31a). As the moment
attack, which determines stability, was minimum. The unstable slope is
arms of the side force are the same for all propellers, the yawing mo­
found to be mostly contributed by the normal force of the propellers.
ments due to the side force exhibit the same tendency (Fig. 31b). The
Under the level flight condition considered and analyzed in this study,
side force generated by the propellers due to the sideslip angle results in
the entire aircraft remains stable in the longitudinal direction, whereas
the yawing moment slope, which represents directionally unstable, and
the power-on effect on the deterioration in the longitudinal stability of
the total yawing moment due to the side force of the propellers con­
the OPPAV was confirmed to originate mainly from the normal force of
tributes the most to the decrease in the directional stability of the entire
the propellers.
aircraft.
As shown in Fig. 32, the yawing moment coefficient of the propellers
3.2.2. Directional stability
themselves is insignificant, as compared to the yawing moment coeffi­
The yawing moment caused by individual propellers was analyzed as
cient caused by the thrust and side force. The entire aircraft maintains
well. As shown in Fig. 28, the outer propeller is located about two times
static directional stability under the operation of the propellers. The
as far from the plane of symmetry as the inner propeller. Again, the
main cause of the deterioration in the directional stability of the OPPAV
arrows represent the positive direction of forces and moment. Fig. 29
due to the power-on effect is the side force generated by the propellers.
shows the yawing moment coefficient at the CG of the aircraft based on
The comparison of the moment slopes indicates that the directional
the analysis results for the cases of nonzero sideslip angles. Regardless of
stability of the OPPAV is sufficiently procured by the vertical tail.
the operation of the propellers, the yawing moment of the airframe itself
increases with respect to the sideslip angle. The slope of the yawing
4. Conclusion
moment is quite large, indicating strong directional stability, which is
mainly attributed to the vertical tail. The yawing moment generated by
In this study, the ADM and IASM were applied to the aerodynamic
all propellers decreases with the increase in the sideslip angle, and thus
analysis of electric power distributed propulsion aircrafts. The power-on
acts in the direction to reduce the directional stability. However, as the
effect of propellers on the longitudinal and directional stabilities of the
absolute value of the yawing moment generated by the vertical tail is
aircrafts was analyzed. Based on the results and computational cost, the
significantly larger, the airframe maintains an original stable state even
practicality and validity of the two actuator methods were evaluated
with the operation of the propellers.
from an engineering perspective.
Fig. 30 shows the thrust coefficient and the yawing moment coeffi­
By using benchmark problems, the validity of the actuator methods
cient due to the thrust. Based on the direction of the incoming freestream
was examined regarding the propeller’s three axial components of the
with the sideslip angle, the thrust of the propellers located beyond the
force and moment and the mutual aerodynamic interference between
fuselage appears relatively small. At the same time, the thrust of the
the propeller wake and the wing. Two distributed propulsion aircrafts
inner propeller tends to be greater owing to the blockage effect of the
were considered for analysis geometries. The QTP UAV and OPPAV
fuselage, as previously discussed. However, as the outer propeller has a

Fig. 30. Thrust effect of each propeller with respect to sideslip angle: (a) thrust coefficient and (b) yawing moment coefficient due to the thrust.

14
D. Kim et al.
Fig. 31. Side force effect of each propeller with respect to sideslip angle: (a) side force coefficient and (b) yawing moment coefficient due to the side force.
Fig. 32. Yawing moment coefficient of the propellers and total yawing
moment coefficient.
developed by KARI were analyzed with and without propellers at
various angles of attack and sideslip angles, and the power-on effect on
the flight stability of the aircrafts due to the operation of the propellers
was analyzed based on the results.
The QTP UAV was found to be statically stable in terms of both
longitudinal and directional stabilities when the propellers were not
considered. However, it entered a statically unstable state because of the
forces and moments generated by the propellers. The OPPAV main­
tained a stable state even when the propellers were in operation as the
horizontal and vertical tails procured sufficient static stability. However,
the longitudinal and directional stabilities were deteriorated to some
extent because of the operation of the propellers. The cause and char­
acteristics of the change in the stability of the aircrafts were investigated
by analyzing the individual components of the forces generated by the
propellers, moments caused by the forces, and moments of the propellers
themselves. The normal force generated by the propellers, under the
condition of the nonzero angle of attack, was found to be the factor
contributing the most to the deterioration in the longitudinal stability of
the aircrafts. The side force generated by the propellers, for the condi­
tion of nonzero sideslip angle, was found to contribute the most to the
deterioration in the directional stability. Although the pressure distri­
bution on the surface of the aircrafts, such as wings and airframe, was
changed owing to the propeller wake, the change in stability of the
airframe itself was found to be relatively insignificant under the pro­
peller operation.
As the normal and side forces generated by the propellers cause a
considerable moment with respect to the CG of the aircrafts, they could
have a direct influence on the changes in the longitudinal and direc­
tional stabilities. The relative position of each propeller from the CG and
15
Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics 214 (2021) 104648
the magnitude of the normal and side forces generated by the propellers
were identified as important factors. Therefore, it is necessary to
perform aerodynamic analysis and performance analysis, including the
propeller power-on effect, when selecting propeller arrangements and
determining operating methods for each flight condition during the
design and development of a distributed propulsion aircraft. To meet
this purpose, the actuator methods appear to be efficient in terms of
computational cost and time while providing sufficient result accuracy
required for the analysis of the power-on effect. The actuator methods
are expected to be practical and useful engineering tools depending on
the purpose, for the development of distributed propulsion aircrafts and
other applications of industrial aerodynamics.
As future studies, possible modifications of the actuator methods will
be explored for further improvement in accuracy. To achieve this, the
analysis of the OPPAV of modified design will be carried out by using the
actuator methods and the power-on effect will be compared with the
results from the full CFD analysis and the wind tunnel experiment which
are now on-going independently. In addition, by constructing a solver
that combines the actuator methods with the overset mesh method, we
intend to efficiently analyze and investigate the transitional flight phase
of flight vehicles with multiple tilt propellers.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Dahye Kim: Writing – review & editing, Software, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Visualization. Yebin Lee: Formal analysis, Software,
Investigation. Sejong Oh: Methodology, Supervision. Youngmin Park:
Conceptualization, Project administration. Jaehoon Choi: Formal
analysis, Validation. Donghun Park: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Writing – original draft, Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Study on the Core Technologies of
Electric Vertical Take-Off & Landing Aircraft (FR20A04) through Na­
tional Research Council of Science & Technology.
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