University of Tennessee

Aerospace Senior Design

Design of a Propeller Driven Airplane

Anurag Bonthalapati
9/19/2013

Please direct questions, comments, or concerns to Anurag Bonthalapati by email at

abonthal@utk.edu.
I.1 Design Summary
Various design configurations were contemplated for the design of this airplane, including a
conventional airplane, flying wing, dual wing biplane and a tri wing. The simplicity and
available knowledge of a conventional airplane outweighed the benefits of the other design and
was ultimately selected as the final design. This design also allowed for appropriate placements
of payloads for specific missions.
I.2 Mission Requirements
Mission one requires the aircraft to take off from a corrugated panel and complete a maximum
number of laps around a circuit in four minutes. Mission two required the plane to take off from
a 40 feet long field made out of corrugated panels while clearing 3.5 inch high obstacles and
carrying a 6”x6”x6” block weighing one pound. The plane had to be able to fly at least 12000
feet with 50% battery remaining. The final mission required the plane to take off from a 40 feet
field made out of corrugated panels while carrying two Patient/Gurney and Attendant “blocks”
weighing one pound each. The plane had to also be able to fly at least 12000 feet with 50%
battery remaining. With constraints in mind, the aircraft was designed to have a stall speed of
14.77 ft/s and a maximum cruise speed of 75 ft/s at maximum gross takeoff weight.
II. Selection of Different Parts
II.1 Airfoil Selection
Two important parameters were kept in mind when the airfoil selection was being made. The air
foil needed to have a high co-efficient of lift and a high lift to drag ratio. A high lift to drag ratio
result in a lower drag for the same lift. This would in turn enable the aircraft to fly faster in the
first mission. By having a high lift co-efficient, the wing size can be minimized, resulting in
reduced weight. With these in mind, several airfoils were analyzed and the airfoil selected was
the NACA 2412. Fig 6 is a graph of the airfoil and Fig 7 in Appendix B shows the lift curve
slope for a 2 D NACA 2412 airfoil.
II.2 Motor Selection
Selection of the motor was extremely crucial in determining the performance of the aircraft. The
motor could draw a maximum current of 15 A and thus selecting a motor with a maximum
current rating lower than 15 A would mean that the motor’s full power would not be available. It
was important to keep in mind that motor’s internal resistance had to be negligibly small.
Keeping in mind all the performance parameters, an Eflite Outrunner series motor was chosen.
The following table, Table 1, provides the motor specifications.
Table 1: Specifications of Selected Motor
Motor Eflite Park 480 - 1020 Outrunner
Max Power 280 W
Kv 1020 rpm/V
Max Amp 28 A
Max Effi ciency 84 %
Motor Diameter 35 mm
Motor Length 35 mm
Motor Weight 87 g
Max rpm 20000 rpm

Where, W is Watts, rpm is revolutions per minute, V is volts,

A is Amperes, g is grams and mm is mili meter.

Fig 1: Lift Curve slope and Drag co-efficient vs. Lift co-efficient for NACA 2412 airfoil

II.3 Battery Selection

For mission three, it was important that a large volume of space be available for the
patient/gurney and attendant packages and thus with keeping this in mind, the battery required to
be smaller in size while still providing the appropriate power to the motor. A NiMH battery set
was chosen, proving 1.2 V each with negligible internal resistance. Table 2 provides specific
information about the battery chosen.
Table 2: Battery information
Battery Elite 2400 4/5
Size 4/5 Sub C
Advertised Voltage 1.2 V
Current available 2200 mAh
Weight 41.4 g
Number of Batteries 15

Where, V is Volts, g is grams and mAh is mili Amp hour

II.4 Propeller
Based on the selection of the motor, a propeller with a larger diameter and smaller pitch was
preferred, thereby providing higher static thrust. With the height restrictions imposed, a 6”x5”
propeller had to be selected. This propeller was categorized with a high value of static thrust
while also providing a considerable top speed. Table 3 shows the specific information for the
propeller chosen.
Table 3: Propeller Specifications
Propeller TGS Sport 6x5E Precision
Diameter 6 in
Pitch 5 in
Angle of Twist (0.75R) 19.47754893 DEG

Where, deg is degrees, in is inches.

II.5 Material
Various materials were investigated for building the airplane. The material needed to be light
while still structurally sound. Material strength was crucial to mission two and mission three as
payload is increased. Balsa wood, being structurally sound and strong and considerably light
weight was investigated, but for the current specified airplane it turned out that the balsa wood
would weigh almost 23 lbs and hence was discarded. A foam based airplane was structurally
sound for the current payload requirements while also being extremely light and hence was
selected as the material used to build the plane.
A table indicating the individual component weight and the total weight of the airplane for each
mission is shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Individual Component weight and total weight of airplane
Item Mission 1 (lb) Mission 2 (lb) Mission 3 (lb)
Batteries (15) 1.36 1.36 1.36
Motor 0.191 0.191 0.191
Propeller 0.066 0.066 0.066
Landing Gear 0.383 0.383 0.383
6"x6"x6" Block 0 1 1
Patient and Attendant 0 0 2
Material 3 3 3
Total 5 6 8

Where, lb is pounds.

III. Aircraft Performance

The following table, Table 6 consists of all the critical aircraft specifications. A long wingspan
was chosen as it minimized the required power and reduced the requirement for the number of
motors used. The location of the aerodynamic center of the airplane is shown in Fig 8, Fig 9 and
Fig 10. For reasons of stability, it was necessary to locate the center of gravity in front of the
aerodynamic center of the airplane and thus, this is accounted for by the payload distribution.
The aerodynamic center for the airplane was calculated to be 1.19 feet from the nose of the
plane. The calculation of the aerodynamic center is shown in Appendix C. Fig 1 shows the
location for the aerodynamic center and the center of gravity for different missions.
 Mission 3

2
Aerodynamic Cener
Center of Graviy
1

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4

Distance from nose (ft)

Table 5: Critical Aircraft Specifications

Critical Aircraft Specifications
S 20 ft^2
AR 5
b 10 ft
W 8 lb
P/S 8.36 lb/ft-s
λ 1
δ 0.0477
e 0.9544
ct 2 ft
cr 2 ft
Swet 55.72 ft^2

Where, S is planform area, AR is aspect ratio, b is wingspan, W is weight, P is power, λ is taper ratio, ct is tip chord,
cr is root chord and Swet is the wetted surface area.

III.1 Power Available and Propeller Efficiency

The following graph, Fig 2 is a graph showing the available power for the motor selected. The
maximum available current was 15 A and 15 1.2 V batteries were used to power the motor. The
maximum power drawn by the motor was calculated using Equation 6. The efficiency of the
motor was 84% and this was used to calculate the shaft power. It was also calculated that the
motor would consume 50% of the battery in approximately 4.4 minutes. Based on the available
power available and the required power, it was found that the maximum cruise velocity was 55
ft/s.
 120.0

100.0

80.0
Power (lbf-ft/s)

60.0
Power Required
Power Available
40.0 Actual Power available

20.0

0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Vinf (ft/s)

Fig 2: Power versus Velocity graph. Here Vinf is the free stream velocity in ft/s

Based on this value of velocity, the advance ratio J was calculated using Equation 1. A graph of
propeller efficiency was plotted for the advance ratio and curve fitter as shown in Fig 3.
0.9
0.8 f(x) = − 9.62113 x⁴ + 17.3378 x³ − 10.50231 x² + 3.400877 x
− 0.0383482
0.7
0.6
0.5
ƞpr

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
J =V/ND

Fig 3: Propeller Efficiency vs. Advance Ratio. Where, J is Advance ratio, V is free stream velocity, N is number of
revolutions per second of the shaft, D is diameter of the propeller and ƞpr is the efficiency of the propeller.

Based on this curve fit a new graph was plotted for the calculated Power available and required
power. This is shown in Fig 4. Based on these plots, the propeller in Table 3 was chosen and the
maximum cruise velocity from the graph was found to be 65 ft/s.
 140.0

120.0

100.0
Power (lbf-ft/s)

80.0
Power Required
60.0 Power Available
Actual Power available
Curve-fit Power actual
40.0

20.0

0.0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Vinf (ft/s)

Fig 4: A showing actual, curve-fitted, available and required power vs. velocity.

III.2 Drag at cruise, cruise and stall speed

Equation 2 was used in the calculation of the drag at cruise speed. The drag co-efficient was
calculated using the drag polar equation as showing in Equation 3 and a graph of the drag polar
shown in Fig 5. At cruise conditions, the drag on the aircraft is equal to the thrust and this is
given by Equation 4. The stall speed of the airplane was calculated using Equation 5. Table 6
consists of the various performance parameters for different missions.
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
CD

0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

CL

Fig 5: Graph of Drag co-efficient vs. Lift co-efficient

Table 6: Table of performance parameters in flight
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3
Drag at cruise (lbf) 1.36 1.36 1.36
Cruise speed (ft/s) 65 65 65
Stall speed (ft/s) 12.48 13.67 15.79
Take off distance (ft) 14.58 16.41 20.305
time to travel 12000 ft (min) 3.07 3.07 3.07

IV. Weather Information

Another crucial parameter to consider was the weather at the location. During the time of the
competition, in the second week of April, the weather is fairly cooler and provides optimum
conditions for flight. Table 7 is a table of relevant weather data.
Table 7: Weather Information
Weater information for Wichita, KS
Aveage high (°F) 62
Average low (°F) 41
Elevation (ft) 1298
Density of air (slugs/ft^3) 0.002285

IV. Cost Analysis

In engineering projects it is very important to work with budget in mind. It is always favorable to
build an airplane spending as little money as possible. But there is also a trade off as better
quality motors come at a higher price. Table 8 presents the cost of each individual item and the
overall cost of the project.
Table 8: Table showing overall cost of project
Item Cost ($)
Motor 45
Batteries 30
Foam Material 6
Propeller 1.64
Landing Gear 8.43
Total 91.07
Appendix A: Important Equations
V
J= (1)
ND
Where, J is advance ratio, V is free stream velocity in ft/s, N is the number of revolutions of the
motor shaft in rps and D is diameter in ft.
1 2
D= ρV S C D (2)
2
Where, D is Drag force, CD is drag co-efficient, S is the planform Area, V is the free stream
velocity and ρ is the density of air.
2
C D =C D 0 + K C L ( 3 )

Where, CD is the drag co-efficient, CD0 is the drag due to skin friction and CLC is the co-efficient
of lift.
P
T= ( 4)
V
Where, T is Thrust in pounds, P is power in lbf-ft/s and V is velocity in ft/s
V s =√ 2W /( ρS C Lmax )(5)

Where, VS is Stall speed, W is weight, S is the planform area, CLmax is the maximum co-efficient
of lift and ρ is the density of air.
P=VI (6)
Where, P is power in Watts, V is Voltage and I is current.
Appendix B: Airfoil Data

Fig 6: Airfoil structure of a NACA 2412 Airfoil.

Fig 7: Lift curve slope and Drag co-efficient vs. Lift co-efficient for NACA 2412 airfoil.