Is it possible to calculate propeller drag coefficient from thrust coefficient? Are they related in any way?
I have calculated propeller thrust coefficient by simple approximation using DriveCalculator. I then made some curves in Excel and would like to repeat the same for drag (prop: EPP1045, engine: EMP2836/09 880KV).
Replies
hello
as i know n is rev per sec
and D is diameter in unit of meter
rho is in kg per cubic meter
Coefficient of drag (Cd) is an attribute of an airfoil section (or any particular shape) at a particular angle of attack (AoA) and Re. We can use calculus to integrate those values over the entire radius of the blade, but it appears to me your line of questioning is more along the lines of efficiency rather than Cd. A holistic look at "drag" in this context really means "energy expended that is not added to thrust". There are generally two ways of analyzing propeller efficiency: static (most useful for lifting propellers) and at some advance ratio (i.e. moving laterally - best for fixed wings).
I believe this prop has already been tested in a wind tunnel at the University of Illinois. Perhaps you should start there. They've already graphed propeller efficiencies vs. V/nD (advance ratio). For static conditions, figure-of-merit or FM can be calculated by using their measured coefficients of power and thrust. Here's the formula (in spreadsheet notation) which you'll need to use to calculate it from the "static" table data: =((CT)^1.5)/(CP)*0.707))
University of Illinois Wind Tunnel Small Prop Test Database
Can you give us some details about the computation of Cd, I've been searching for days and the better definition I had is a polynomial expression which depends on the angle of attack (trend line of data with bigger propeller, eq. 20).
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&sou...
I'm working on a drone simulation, the reference is the quad-copter DJI F450, and the propeller is a 1045 carbon fiber; I don't have access to more information but I only want a way to determine Cd without using a wind tunnel. I'm planing to use this coefficient in the yaw's control equation.
Thanks in advance.