Design of Propellers via the Mean Streamline Method
Open Access
- Author:
- Vinson, David Wesley
- Area of Honors:
- Aerospace Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- William C Zierke, Thesis Supervisor
William C Zierke, Thesis Supervisor
Jeremy James Koncoski, Thesis Supervisor
Robert Graham Melton, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. George A Lesieutre, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- design
propellers
propulsors
mean streamline method - Abstract:
- The Mean Streamline Method (MSM) is an empirically based method for blade shape design of propulsor rotors and stators currently employed by the Applied Research Laboratory at The Pennsylvania State University (ARL). The Mean Streamline Method and its empirical functions relating mean streamline shape to camberline shape were derived for propulsors in axial flow; however, many propulsor designs operate in mixed-flow conditions. Therefore, ARL desired improvements to MSM that would expand its functionality to cases involving mixed flow. Several alterations to the original MSM code were investigated, including two methods that modified the output by including additional streamline data and a method that utilizes a conformal transformation to account for mixed flow. The modified codes were compared to blades previously designed by ARL to validate their implementation. Two cases were considered: first an axial-flow case intended as a validation case, since each method should produce the same results for an axial-flow propulsor, and a mixed-flow case to test the new methods’ ability to account for mixed-flow conditions. The modified codes accurately reproduced axial flow blades. The mixed-flow case results from the modified methods increased the unfavorable characteristics of the blades, opposite the intended effect. A new focus for MSM modification is to examine the empirical blade offsets which were originally measured for axial flow blades.