Design and Simulate the Aerodynamics of Propellers in MATLAB

Name: Design and Simulate the Aerodynamics of Propellers in MATLAB
Rating: 4.3 (302 reviews)

Understand the aerodynamics behind wings and propellers and use advanced methods to simulate propellers in MATLAB.

Created byEliott Wertheimer

Last updated 5/2019

English

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What you'll learn

Understand the fundamentals of aerodynamics and pressure.
Understand the physics behind wings and propellers.
Learn how to use lift and drag equations.
Understand and use Actuator Disk Theory to quickly calculate the power thrust and efficiency generated by a propeller.
Understand and use Blade Element Theory to thoroughly design and simulate propellers.
Create and test an engineering model in MATLAB.
Use Blade Element Theory in MATLAB to design and simulate a propeller in real flight conditions.

Course content

4 sections • 14 lectures • 3h 53m total length

Introduction to Aerodynamics and Pressure13:53
Explore fundamentals of aerodynamics and pressure, including static, dynamic, and stagnation pressures, lift, drag. Apply actuator disk and blade element theories in MATLAB to design propellers and wings.
Wings & Propellers: How do they work?14:14
Explore how wings generate lift and drag through airflow, boundary layers, and angle of attack, including attachment and stall. Learn how propellers use rotating wings to produce thrust.
Lift & Drag Equations6:03
Derive the lift equation L = 1/2 rho V^2 A CL and the drag equation D = 1/2 rho V^2 A CD using wing surface area, CD, and CL.

Power Due to Momentum & Thrust18:34
Explore actuator disk theory to compute propeller power and thrust using mass flow rate, upstream and downstream velocities, pressure differences, and stagnation pressure concepts.
Thrust, Power and Efficiency using Bernoulli17:01
Apply Bernoulli's equations to the actuator disk, deriving thrust from mass flow, velocity, and density, and analyze minimum power and propulsive efficiency for propellers.

Blade Element Theory15:37
Learn blade element theory for propellers: model blades as independent sections to compute lift, drag, thrust, and torque from local flow and angle of attack, with solidity and MATLAB implementation.
Inflow Factors & Conservation of Angular Momentum23:44
Apply blade element theory with inflow factors and conservation of angular momentum to predict propeller performance by modeling stream tubes, velocity components, and iterative Matlab solutions.

Propeller, Aircraft & Flight Properties12:06
Analyze the Jabiru propeller using blade element theory in a MATLAB model, calculating lift and drag coefficients with Xfoil, Reynolds number, and propeller performance at cruise conditions.
User Prompt and Flight States10:49
Implement blade element theory in MATLAB to test a Jabiru propeller across takeoff, climb, and cruise by handling user input and state-specific air density, RPM, and velocity ranges.
Extracting Aerodynamic Data From an Excel File9:13
Extract propeller aerodynamic data from an Excel file in MATLAB using xlsread, reading lift and drag coefficients and angle of attack from two sheets.
Initiating the Bijection Loop and Aerodynamic Calculations24:30
Design and simulate propeller aerodynamics in MATLAB by applying blade element theory, looping over velocities and blade sections, and computing angle of attack, lift and drag coefficients via interpolation.
Closing the Convergence Loop20:02
Develop and refine the blade element theory by computing elemental thrust and torque per section, updating inflow factors, and iterating until convergence.
Performance, Dimensionless Coefficients and Data Visualization18:27
Compute thrust, torque, and power coefficients (dimensionless) in MATLAB, convert units to rotations per second, derive the advance ratio J, assess propulsion efficiency by two methods, and visualize the results.
Debugging, Running the Code and Analysing Results29:31
Debug and run a blade element theory model in MATLAB to test propeller performance, analyzing thrust, torque, and efficiency across flight conditions and pitch settings.

Requirements

Basic understanding of physics (Force, Velocity, Acceleration, etc).
High School Diploma mathematics level (Differentiation, etc).

Description

One of the only comprehensive, detailed and approachable online courses taking you through the physics behind wings and propellers to then teach you how to use Actuator Disk theory or Blade Element Theory in MATLAB to model, design and simulate the performance of propellers accurately in real life conditions.

Today, propellers and wings are central to ensuring the functioning of some of the most important and impressive machines created by mankind. From personal drones, to airplanes, how does "apparently" such simple engineering devices create forces literally out of thin air, and how can you harness the wonderful Physics behind them?

This course gives you the opportunity to learn and do the following:

- Understand Aerodynamics and Pressure.
- Understand the Physics behind Wings and Propellers.
- Understand Actuator Disk Theory from its fundamentals and use it to estimate Propellers' Power, Thrust and Efficiency.
- Understand Blade Element Theory from its fundamentals.
- Implement Blade Element Theory in MATLAB and use it to fully design and/or simulate propellers in real flight conditions.

I will thoroughly detail and walk you through each of these concepts and techniques and explain down to their fundamental principles, all concepts and subject-specific vocabulary. This course is the ideal beginner, intermediate or advanced learning platform for the mathematics and physics behind wings and propellers as well as the use of MATLAB in engineering design and simulation. Whatever your background, whether you are a student, an engineer, a sci-fi addict, an amateur roboticist, a drone builder, a computer scientist or a business or sports person, you will master the physics behind propellers and learn how to use the power of MATLAB to design and simulate your own propellers for any project you might have, whether pure curiosity or a full-sized aircraft!

If you have questions at any point of your progress along the course, do not hesitate to contact me, it will be my pleasure to answer you within 24 hours!

If this sounds like it might interest you, for your personal growth, career or academic endeavours, I strongly encourage you to join! You won't regret it!

Who this course is for:

Anyone interested in harnessing the power of MATLAB for engineering design.
Anyone interested in understanding how wings fly and propellers push in any kind of aircraft.
Anyone interested in designing and simulating his own wing or propeller.
Anyone interested in learning how to model real life engineering systems.

Design and Simulate the Aerodynamics of Propellers in MATLAB

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Physics & Mathematics Behind Wings & Propellers3 lectures • 34min

Actuator Disk & Momentum Theory2 lectures • 36min

Blade Element Theory2 lectures • 39min

MATLAB Implementation7 lectures • 2hr 5min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: