Design and Analysis of Propellers for Low Reynolds Number Application to Mini-RPV's

This report presents the design and analysis of propellers applied to mini-remotely piloted vehicles along with the methods used. Modifications to the airfoil data used for predicting the profile drag losses were necessary to account for operation at the low Reynolds number encountered by mini-RPV propellers. The correction was determined from the available airfoil data and low Reynolds number propeller test data. Using the revised methods of propeller analysis, optimum propellers were designed and analyzed. The study showed that improved performanced can be obtained with new propeller designs.

This study was conducted under contract No. DAAJ02-76-C-0031 with the Eustis Directorate, U.S. Army Mobility Research and Development Laboratory, Fort Eustis, Virginia 23604.