Drag Reduction for an Airship with Proper Arrangement of Propellers

In this article, the flow field around an airship with propellers blowing is calculated on the basis of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with SST turbulent models. Modeled each as an actuator disk, the propellers are arranged at different positions around the body of airship in the flow direction. The numerical results show that the blowing propellers produce open outer flows. They drive the separated vortexes off the body thus reducing the drag coefficients. The results also show that the position after leading sucking peak is the best place for a propeller to blow. When the propellers are positioned after sucking peak, the longer the area which the propellers work on, the more the profile drag coefficients can be reduced. If the working position of propeller moves from the sucking peak forward to the leading edge, the friction drag coefficient will increase. The bigger the diameter of the propellers and the stronger the pressure jump, the more the drag coefficient will be reduced. The results also reveal that for the design of circularly-positioned propellers with space intervals, the more drag coefficient reduction results, the smaller the space interval is specified.