Panel Method for Ducted Propellers with Sharp Trailing Edge Duct with Fully Aligned Wake on Blade and Duct

A low-order panel method is used to predict the performance of ducted propellers. A full wake alignment (FWA) scheme, originally developed to determine the location of the force-free trailing wake of open propellers, is improved and extended to determine the location of the force-free trailing wakes of both the propeller blades and the duct, including the interaction with each other. The present method is applied on a ducted propeller with sharp trailing edge duct, and the predicted results over a wide range of advance ratios, with or without full alignment of the duct wake, are compared with each other, as well as with results from RANS simulations and with measurements from an experiment.