Acoustic Investigation on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s Rotor Using CFD-MRF Approach

Abstract

Abstract Future developments have been indicated for further research and development in the Aeroacoustics of the components of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In which the implementation of multi-rotor UAVs in the complex applications is quite high but it has the drawback of high drive-line noise levels, which is one of the prime radar detectability factors. As a result, an idea is emerged to design and test the quite UAV, in which the noise from propellers plays a major role. in order to the successful completion of the design study, a complete is conducted, in which the design parameters and various noise reduction methodologies in the rotating components have been noted and included in the final design. To minimize the noise signature issue in UAV, the idea finalized that to minimize the decibel of small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) propellers via leading-edge modifications. A computer-aided design of base propeller and three different versions propeller with leading-edge modifications are generated with the help of CATIA for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Comparative noise variation simulations between the existing and the propellers with modification are performed, in which dynamic conditions play a predominant to initiate the analysis and thereby the analyses are carried out with the help of ANSYS Workbench Fluent 16.2. Especially, to make an acceptable solution, the Moving Reference Frame (MRF) approach is used in order to capture the propeller rotation in an effective manner. Finally, a propeller with airfoil cut at the leading edge has induced the low noise.