Distributed Electric Propulsion

这个围绕分布式电力推进的项目旨在建立对分布式电力推进的最佳配置的空气动力学理解。分布式电力推进包括沿机翼的跨度和翼尖放置小型电力驱动的螺旋桨，以提高空气动力学效率。实验和计算流体动力学相结合将用于确定翼尖螺旋桨减阻背后的物理机制，以及前缘螺旋桨的存在对减阻的影响方式。这将允许设计一个优化的全翼几何形状，增加升力和减少阻力，以改善燃油消耗。该技术的主要应用是大型运输机，由于目前电池电力技术的限制，这些运输机目前还无法实现电气化。

This project around distributed electric propulsion aims to build an aerodynamic understanding of the optimal configurations for distributed electric propulsion. Distributed electric propulsion involves placing small electrically driven propellers along the span of a wing and at the wing tip to improve aerodynamic efficiency. A combination of experiments and computational fluid dynamics will be used to determine the physical mechanism behind drag reduction in wing-tip propellers, and the way in which this is affected by the presence of leading-edge propellers. This will allow the design of an optimised full-wing geometry with increased lift and reduced drag to improve fuel burn. The main application for this is larger transport aircraft that cannot currently be electrified due to the limitations of current battery electric technologies.