Performance Calculation and Design of Stratospheric Propeller

A new high altitude propeller is analyzed and designed in this paper to be used on the stratospheric aircraft propulsion system. Two more appropriate approaches to investigate the aerodynamics characteristics of the high altitude propeller are obtained by comparison of vortex theory with the Spalart-Allmaras (S-A) model and XFOIL program, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and wind tunnel tests, which are vortex theory with the S-A model and CFD method. In addition, the comparison results show the S-A model is more suitable than the XFOIL program to calculate lift and drag coefficients of S1223 airfoil in case of laminar flow separation and low Reynolds number. What is more, the design procedure of the new high altitude propeller is also described. The above approaches are applied to the new high altitude propeller to get the thrust coefficient, power coefficient, and efficiency. It is indicated that the design propeller can meet the cruising requirement of aircraft at the design point.