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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

Numerical Analysis of the Effect of Ducted Propeller

Configuration Parameters on Aerodynamic Performance

Zeyu Li, Jianghao Wu, Haiying Lin

Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China

haiying@buaa.edu.cn

Abstract. In this paper, a numerical calculation method is applied to investigate the influences
of ducted propeller aerodynamic configuration parameters. The thrust, torque and power of the
propeller in the duct and the decoupled propeller are compared under identical conditions. The
performance with equal input power is analysed considering the additional thrust of the duct.
The relationships of system thrust, power and efficiency with the axial position of the propeller
disk in the duct, the propeller disk diameter and the propeller-duct clearance are investigated.

1. Introduction
A ducted propeller consists of an annular duct surrounding one or multiple propellers, which provides
vertical take-off and landing capability and excellent hovering performance for the aircraft [1]. The
airflow generates a low-pressure area at the duct lip, providing additional thrust to the system. The
enclosure of the duct effectively suppresses the propeller tip vortex [2], reduces losses [3], and
provides higher aerodynamic efficiency as a power system [4].
The principle of the additional thrust of the duct was studied [5]. With experimental methods, the
variations of the thrust characteristics were summarized with the radius of the duct lip, the duct height,
and the duct expansion angle [6]. The Blade-element theory [7] and the lamellar strip theory [8] have
been applied to numerical calculation methods [9]. Nested mesh techniques [10] and slip mesh models
[11] have been validated for ducted propeller calculations.
The existing research on the ducted propeller system [12] primarily concentrates on the study of the
flow field characteristics of the duct in the axial flow and forward flight states and the study of the
influence of the duct geometric shape parameters on the overall performance of the ducted propeller
[13].
A numerical solution method for the ducted propeller system is developed in this paper to solve the
flow field for this configuration and analyse the effect of aerodynamic configuration parameters on the
aerodynamic performance of the ducted propeller.

2. Numerical Calculation and Validation Methods

The aerodynamic modelling dealing with the relative motion between the duct and the propeller is
performed using a dynamic region computational model. The multiple reference frame (MRF) model
uses a steady-state solution method with an interface at the regional intersection for data transfer and
has a computational accuracy sufficient to meet the demand for calculating the maximum load
capacity and a computational volume smaller than that of transient calculations. The numerical
calculation parameters are demonstrated in Table 1.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

Table 1. Numerical calculation parameters.

Atmospheric Atmospheric Atmospheric Viscosity

temperature pressure density coefficient
288.15 K 1.01325×105 Pa 1.225 kg/m3 1.7894×10-5Ns/m2

2.1. Numerical validation

This paper implements computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using the commercial solver ANSYS
Fluent 19R1. For the aerodynamic calculation of the relative motion between the duct and the
propeller, an MRF model is applied for the steady-state solution, and the k-ω SST turbulence model is
selected to solve the turbulence calculation of the rotating flow field. Test experiments are carried out
based on a standalone propeller to verify the computational model. The aerodynamic characteristics
tests of this system were conducted in the Department of Airworthiness Engineering laboratory,
Beihang University, with an open test area. Figure 1 shows the installation of the test model. A six-
component box-type strain gauge balance was used to measure the thrust and torque, and the motor
controller captured the Hall coil signal built into the motor to obtain the rotational speed. A PID speed
control algorithm running in the Arduino development board was utilized to maintain the test rotation
speed stability with a 1% speed error. The Amass DC power supplier was used to control and measure
the input voltage and current to calculate the power. The motor system efficiency is 95%. Numerical
results of power and thrust are displayed in Figure 1, compared with the obtained experimental data.
The calculated thrust is underestimated by about 5% and the power by 10%, as shown in Figure 2, but
within the measurement uncertainty for all operating conditions.

Figure 1. Aerodynamic test experiment of a propeller.

Figure 2. Comparisons of aerodynamic performances between numerical and experimental results.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

2.2. Computational Models

A ducted propeller consisting of a duct and a propeller is utilized as the power system of the UAV, as
shown in Figure 3. The propeller diameter is 546mm, the inner-diameter of the duct is 550mm, the
outer-diameter is 671mm, the height is 334mm, the propeller blade is three blades, and the clearance
between the blade tip and the inner duct wall is about 2mm. The propeller centre is 98mm from the
entrance plane and 200mm from the exit plane of the duct. The propeller adopts a radially occupied
variable airfoil design with ARA-D6%, ARA-D10% and ARA-D13% airfoils, with the pitch angle
rangeing from 52°to 25°from 25% radial position to the tip.
The duct is a geometry formed by an airfoil rotated around an axis. A non-uniform rational B-sample
curve combined with the characteristic parameter description method is considered to realize the
geometric parameterization of the duct section airfoil.
Figure 4 shows that the duct section airfoil is characterized by straight-line segments and non-uniform
rational B spline curves. C, G, and K are fixed lip boundary points. The horizontal coordinates of the
beginning b point of the expansion section, the vertical coordinates of the trailing edge boundary A
and the lip spline control points D, E, F, H, I, and J are used as design variables to control the duct exit
radius, the length of the exit expansion section, and the shape and radius of the leading edge.

Figure 3. Ducted propeller model.

Figure 4. Duct section airfoil.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

2.3. Boundary condition and mesh

The entire calculation basin is shown in Figure 5. The propeller diameter is denoted as D. The basin
consists of two cylinders. The outer flow field extends radially to 4D. The rotating region is axially 6D
away from the inlet and 10D away from the outlet.

Figure 5. Calculation basin of ducted propeller.

The meshes of stationary and rotating regions are generated separately by ANSYS ICEM CFD 19R1.
They are densified at the leading edge and trailing edge of the duct, propeller blade tip and propeller
blade, and inner duct wall to improve the calculation accuracy. The meshing of the propeller and the
outflow field is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Unstructured mesh for stationery and rotation regions of the ducted propeller.

2.4. Aerodynamic performance parameters

The ducted propeller thrust direction is aligned with the incoming flow direction. Concerning the
propeller aerodynamic evaluation, its aerodynamic performance is judged by considering its
dimensionless thrust, torque, power, and efficiency parameters.
Thrust coefficient:
T
CT = (1)
 ns2 D 4
Torque coefficient:
M
CM = (2)
 ns2 D5
Propeller power:
P = 2 M  ns (3)
Power coefficient:

4
MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

P
CP = (4)
 ns3 D5
The figure of merit (FM):
3
P Pi C2
FM = i = = T (5)
P  Pi + P0 2CP
Disk load (DL):
T
DL = (6)
A
Power load:
T 2
PL = =  FM (7)
P DL
FM was generally considered to reflect the propeller efficiency but only applicable to different
propellers with the duplicate DL. In the case of κ and P0 being the same, the greater the propeller with
the more significant disc load, the greater the 𝐹M, at which point the two propellers produce the same
pull, while the more efficient propeller consumes more of the total power. For a propeller with the
same thrust coefficient and power coefficient, the greater the speed, the higher the thrust (proportional
to the speed squared), and the higher the propeller disc load, but its power load is lower because the
power is proportional to the speed cube.
Therefore, the efficiency can be expressed by the thrust ratio, i.e., the thrust, to the power that a ducted
propeller can generate at a given power. The balance of the thrust coefficient to the power coefficient,
C𝑇/C𝑃, a dimensionless quantity, is considered for judging the propeller efficiency.

2.5. Mesh independence study

The mesh volumes of 4.7 million, 6.2 million, 9.5 million and 11.7 million meshes were tested for the
calculation, and the results of the aerodynamic characteristics of the four scale meshes were calculated
as shown in Table 2. As the mesh density increases, the thrust coefficient of the ducted propeller
increases, the torque coefficient decreases, and the efficiency increases. When the number of mesh
nodes is more significant than 9.5 million, the ducted propeller system's aerodynamic coefficient and
efficiency tend to be stable. Therefore, the mesh density chosen in this paper is 9.5 million.
Table 2. Comparison of aerodynamic results with different mesh sizes.
Mesh number CT CM CP Efficiency
4.7 million 0.45352 0.03876 0.24298 1.86648
6.2 million 0.45684 0.03832 0.24079 1.89726
9.5 million 0.46218 0.03785 0.23784 1.94326
11.7 million 0.46271 0.03773 0.23708 1.95165

3. Numerical analysis of the ducted propeller shape parameters

3.1. Influence of the axial position of the propeller

When considering the effect of the propeller disc axial position on the aerodynamic characteristics, the
impact of the propeller-duct clearance is removed using the flat section of the inner duct wall, and the
diameter of the propeller disc is used to measure the length of the propeller disc from the lip.
H/d=0.232, 0.277, 0.322, 0.367 and 0.412. The corresponding propeller disc-lip distances are 77.5 mm,
92.5 mm, 107.5 mm, 122.5 mm and 137.5 mm, respectively. Propeller speed is set to 6000 rpm.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

Figure 7. Aerodynamic characteristics of ducted propellers with different axial positions.

Figure 7 demonstrates the changes in the ducted propeller system and each component's thrust
coefficient, power coefficient, and efficiency at 6000 rpm for five different axial positions of the
propeller disc. As the propeller disc position moves from the duct inlet to the duct outlet, the propeller
thrust in the duct first increases and then stays unchanged. The trend of changes in the additional duct
thrust, total duct propeller system thrust, power coefficient, and efficiency are similar. The duct thrust
coefficient, power coefficient, and efficiency decrease due to the propeller disc surface's overly
backward position making the duct's inner wall as the rectification section excessively long. The flow
separation occurs before the airflow enters the propeller, thus causing a significant decrease in the
additional thrust and propeller power of the duct, and the reduction of the thrust coefficient is higher
than that of the power coefficient.

3.2. Effect of propeller diameter

When considering the effect of different propeller diameters on the aerodynamic characteristics of the
ducted propeller, the duct height is taken to characterize the different propeller diameters, d/H=1.635,
1.798, 1.962, and 2.452, corresponding to 546mm, 600.6mm, 655.2mm and 819mm. Numerical
simulations are carried out for different propeller diameters of the ducted propeller at 6000rpm with
the propeller-duct clearance as 2mm.
We compared the thrust coefficient, power coefficient and efficiency distribution, as shown in Figure
8. The total thrust coefficient of the ducted propeller improves with the increase of the propeller disc
diameter, and the propeller thrust coefficient and the power coefficient of the ducted propeller are
almost unchanged. The expansion of the total thrust coefficient of the ducted propeller mainly comes
from the increase of the additional thrust of the duct, and the diameter of the propeller disc increases
from the initial value to 1.5 times, and the duct-propeller thrust ratio also increases from 0.941 to
1.010. The variation trend of efficiency is similar to the variation trend of duct propeller thrust ratio, so
we can assume that the change in total thrust due to the shift in propeller thrust leads to the exact trend
change of power. In contrast, the evolution of total thrust due to the change of additional duct thrust
does not result in the shift of power. Therefore, the key to the efficiency of a high ducted propeller
system is to improve the extra duct thrust.

Figure 8. Aerodynamic characteristics of ducted propellers with different propeller diameters.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

3.3. Influence of propeller-duct clearance

When considering the influences of different propeller clearances, the propeller diameter is maintained
at 546, and numerical simulations are carried out for four extra ducted propellers with 2mm, 3mm,
4mm and 5mm propeller-duct clearances at 6000rpm.
The ducted propeller system's total thrust coefficient, power coefficient, and efficiency decreased
significantly as the propeller-duct clearance increased. The maximum efficiency of 1.943 was
achieved at 2 mm for the propeller duct clearance. At the same time, the total thrust coefficient
decreased by about 10% for a propeller-duct clearance of 5 mm, and the efficiency declined by 4%.
The trend of the duct-propeller thrust ratio indicates that the decrease in the total thrust coefficient is
primarily caused by the reduction of the additional thrust in the duct. Figure 9 reflects the various
values of each coefficient.

Figure 9. Aerodynamic characteristics of ducted propellers with different propeller-duct clearances.

Figure 10 (a)-(d) presents the local diagrams of the flow field at the propeller tip position with the
clearance of 2 mm, 3 mm, 4 mm and 5 mm, respectively. As the clearance increases, the vortex at the
propeller tip increases, the airflow separation along the inner wall of the duct intensifies, and the
negative pressure in the low-pressure area at the lip of the duct is weakened, a decrease in the
additional thrust generated by the duct. At the same time, the low-pressure area above the propeller
disc and the high-pressure area below the propeller disc are both reduced, the pressure difference is
decreased, and the thrust generated by the propeller is reduced, which leads to a decrease in the power
coefficient. Since the propeller tip vortex dissipates the system energy, the larger the clearance leads to
increased propeller tip vortex, which increases the energy loss, and the ducted propeller's efficiency
decreases.

4. Conclusions
In this paper, the numerical simulation method is applied to investigate the principle of thrust increase
of the ducted propeller by evaluating the flow field distribution of the decoupled propeller and the
ducted propeller. The effects of the aerodynamic position parameters such as the axial position of the
propeller disk, the diameter of the propeller disk and the propeller-duct clearance on the aerodynamic
performance of the ducted propeller are investigated. The conclusions of the study are as follows.
The system total thrust coefficient, power coefficient and efficiency of the duct propeller increase and
decrease as the propeller disc moves toward the duct outlet in the axial interval with constant
propeller-duct clearance.
The total system thrust coefficient of the ducted propeller increases, the power coefficient remains
constant, and the aerodynamic efficiency increases with a continual propeller-duct clearance and an
increased disc diameter.
The total system thrust coefficient, power coefficient and efficiency of the ducted propeller decrease
with the enhancement of the propeller-duct clearance.

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MEAE-2022 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

Figure 10. Pressure contours and streamlines of ducted propellers with different propeller-duct
clearances.

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[2] GRAY R and Wright T 1969 Determination of the design parameters for optimum heavily
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[4] Zhang T, Qiao G, Smith D A, Barakos G N and Kusyumov A 2021 Parametric study of
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[5] Yilmaz S, Erdem D and Kavsaoglu M 2013 Effects of duct shape on a ducted propeller
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[6] Li L, Huang G and Chen J 2019 Aerodynamic characteristics of a tip-jet fan with a large blade
pitch angle AEROSP SCI TECHNOL 91 49-58

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Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2361 (2022) 012022 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2361/1/012022

[7] Misiorowski M P, Gandhi F S and Oberai A A 2019 Computational Study of Diffuser Length
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[8] Fu J and Zhou Z 2012 Research on the Characteristics of Computational Methods of Ducted
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