Aerodynamic analysis of rotor-to-rotor interactions in different octocopter configurations  

作　　者：Aqib AZIZ Yongjie SHI Yang LIU Guohua XU 

机构地区：[1]National Key Laboratory of Rotorcraft Aeromechanics,Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,Nanjing 210016,China

出　　处：《Chinese Journal of Aeronautics》2025年第3期292-315,共24页中国航空学报(英文版)

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.11972190).

摘　　要：Rotor-to-rotor interaction among neighboring rotors of a multirotor has great significance for aerodynamically efficient multirotor design. Current research is conducted to analyze aerodynamic performance of different octocopter configurations amid hover and forward flight. Conventional and coaxial configurations are studied and a hybrid configuration is also proposed to rectify the disadvantages associated with the earlier two. Comparison is carried out for the aforementioned configurations along with comparison of coaxial and hybrid octocopters with bigger diameter rotors in the same confined space for high thrust requirement missions. Vertical spacing of coaxial configuration is also studied. Virtual Blade Method (VBM) is considered herein due to its great computational efficiency. The results show that there are 11.89% and 14.22% loss in thrust for coaxial octocopter compared to conventional and hybrid configurations with normal size rotors and 15.61% loss compared to hybrid configuration with bigger rotors in hover, whereas coaxial square configuration performs the worst in forward flight with a lift loss of 9.1%, 14.77% and 18.8% compared to coaxial diamond, conventional and hybrid configurations with normal size rotors and 9.96% and 17.82% loss compared to coaxial diamond and hybrid configurations with bigger rotors. Combined FM shows that hybrid configuration outperforms other octocopter configurations in overall aerodynamic performance.

关 键 词：Rotor-to-rotor interaction Virtual blade method Octocopter configurations Aerodynamically efficient HOVER Forward f1ight 

分 类 号：V211.3[航空宇航科学与技术—航空宇航推进理论与工程]