Quadcopter Propeller Design

and Performance Analysis

Endrowednes Kuantama, Dan Craciun, Ioan Tarca and Radu Tarca

Abstract In quadcopter design process, usually the selection of rotor and propeller
are treated carefully because they will determine the maneuver abilities as well as
the speed and maximum carry load. Among various methods used to choose the
best combination of rotor and propeller, this research used Solidworks software
computational method. The final result was compared with data-sheets of three
commercial rotor specification for quadcopters in order to ascertain its validity. The
designed propeller’s size is 16 × 5 inch with two blades, and connected to a rotor
having angular velocity between 1000 and 9000 rpm. In order to analyze the air
pressure around propeller, Solidworks flow simulation was conducted. Information
achieved from analyzed data show that the maximum thrust was 4144 g-force (gf),
with propeller’s coefficient thrust of 0.04. These data can be used to analyze the
power efficiency in rotor propeller which is then useful in choosing the right size of
propeller, according to the desired thrust.

Keywords Propeller ⋅ Quadcopter ⋅ Propeller design ⋅ Thrust ⋅ Solidworks

1 Introduction

The development of quadcopter as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has been

continuously evolved over the past few years. Some of quadcopter researches
focused on modeling [1], control [2], application [3], mathematics formula [4] and

E. Kuantama (✉) ⋅ D. Craciun ⋅ I. Tarca ⋅ R. Tarca

University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania
e-mail: [email protected]
D. Craciun
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Tarca
e-mail: [email protected]
R. Tarca
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 269

B. Corves et al. (eds.), New Advances in Mechanisms,
Mechanical Transmissions and Robotics, Mechanisms and Machine Science 46,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45450-4_27
270 E. Kuantama et al.

Fig. 1 Aerodynamic forces Thrust 4

on quadcopter Thrust 1 Thrust 2
Thrust 3

Drag
Flight Direction
Weight

many others. Quadcopter has four rotors; each pair of opposite rotors are spinning
in the same direction; for instance, both the front and back rotors are spinning
clockwise, while the right and left rotors are spinning counterclockwise (or vice
versa). If the rotors spin at particular velocity, the quadcopter will gain lifting force,
yaw/roll/pitch movement in corresponding direction, or simply hover in the air. The
theory can be seen in quadcopter control and stability [5].
The aerodynamic forces (consisting of thrust, drag, lift and weight) and torques
were calculated using a combination of torque and blade propeller theory. These
forces can be seen in Fig. 1. Aerodynamic forces are generated by propeller’s
movement, which lift up the quadcopter. Thrust is generated by propeller rotation,
which is opposed to the weight and the gravity acceleration which runs vertically
downward through its mass center. Dragging is deceleration force generated by
propeller. The resultant forces of lift and drag in each rotor determine the quad-
copter’s direction of movement.
Solidworks flow simulation software has been used to simulate and analyze the
magnitude of thrust generated by propeller rotation. Propeller rotation produce
airflow, so that, based on angular speed and the size of propeller, one can analyze
air pressure and also calculate the thrust in each rotor. In this research, propellers
having 16 × 5 inch in size and various angular velocities have been used.

2 Propeller Performance Parameters

The aerodynamics of the propellers and the motion of the rigid frame can produce a
coupled dynamic assuming that the propeller’s rotation is such that the local angle
of attack is constant along the blades in stationary flight and the local induced
velocity is also constant along the blades [6]. The propellers create a thrust force out
of the supplied power. The magnitude of this force is not constant for a given
propeller, but depends both on the velocity of the incoming air and also on the
rotating speed of the propeller itself. The performance of propeller can be described
by dimensionless (normalized) coefficients. An airfoil can be characterized by
relations between angle of attack, lift and drag coefficient as it can be seen in Fig. 2.
Quadcopter Propeller Design and Performance Analysis 271

Thrust Chord line

Axial flow at propeller
Lift rotation area

Angular flow
Torque velocity vector
Drag

Fig. 2 Illustration of lift and drag thrust

The resultant forces of lift and drag in each rotor determine the quadcopter’s
direction of movement. The angle between the flow direction and the rotation plane,
known as the inflow angle, is represented by (θ) and the angle between the propeller
chord line and axial flow, or resultant relative wind, is represented by (α) and also
known as the angle of attack. To calculate the efficiency of propeller, all three
coefficients, i.e. advance ratio, thrust and power coefficient must be properly cal-
culated. The thrust can be calculated and explained using momentum theory.
Simple momentum theory can be combined with blade element theory to achieve
better and more adequate results [7, 8]. Relationship between angular velocity and
thrust coefficient is shown in Eq. (1).

T
CT = ð1Þ
ρD4 ω2

Propeller computation can be done using thrust coefficient based on airscrew

diameter (D) and rotation per second in propeller angular velocity which driven by
the rotor torque (ω). Air is defined only by its density (ρ = 1.225 kg/m3). The thrust
coefficient (CT) is a propeller parameter defined as a function of pitch, diameter,
angular velocity and propeller shape. The performance of a propeller is indicated by
thrust coefficient (CT), power coefficient (Cp) and efficiency (η).
The thrust coefficient basically relies on advance ratio (J) as a parameter that
controls the propeller loading. The advance ratio is affected by propeller velocity
(V), its diameter and rotor torque, as explained in Eq. (2). As the propeller rotates, it
generate the forward velocity of the propeller (V). A given J defines the inflow
angle at any point of the blade and, for a propeller blade at a static pitch angle, the
angle of attack distribution. When plotting propeller coefficients, the advance ratio
is the natural choice for independent variable, as it maps to the general angle of
attack state of the propeller blade over the operating range [9].

V
J= ð2Þ
ωD
272 E. Kuantama et al.

The power efficiency is defined as the ratio of thrust power to rotor power (P).
By using Eqs. (1) and (2), the power efficiency coefficient can be defined similar to
Eq. (3). Mathematic formula for propeller is given using the thrust and power
coefficient as function of the advance ratio, thus the propeller efficiency can also be
served as function of the advance ratio [10].

ðJCT ρn3 D5 Þ
η= ð3Þ
P

Based on all these equations, it is safe to conclude that propeller design cannot
be separated from aerodynamic effect occurred around the propeller. The forward
velocity produced by aerodynamic movement is affected by the angle of attack and
wind inflow angle in propeller.

3 Propeller Design Profile

As quadcopter has static rotors, the propeller was designed in an unstressed state
regardless of the gravitational effects. However to simulate a rotating propeller, it
must be exposed to pre-stressed inertial load state which yield from a constant
rotational velocity [11]. In this simulation design, the propeller size is 16
(length) × 5 (pitch) inch. Pitch is the space in which the propeller will travel
onward through a solid medium with one complete revolution. CAD design for
propeller can be seen in Fig. 3.
The angle of attack was designed 3 degrees for every point of pitch distribution.
There are 10 points of pitch distribution in this design, in which the propeller radius
(R) is 203.2 mm. The propeller used was asymmetric so it had different curvature
surface on every point of pitch distribution. This design was based on the size of a
commercial propeller that is 16 × 5 inch, whose surface affects the way in which
the axial flow occurs on the rotating propeller. The coefficient thrust of the designed
propeller was determined using Solidworks flow simulation.

Angle of attack 1R
Size: 16 inch/406.4 mm
Angle of attack: 3ᴼ 0.9R
0.8R
0.7R
0.6R
0.1R 0.2R 0.5R
Length 0.3R 0.4R

Fig. 3 Propeller design using Solidworks

Quadcopter Propeller Design and Performance Analysis 273

4 Simulation Results and Discussions

By using Solidworks to design the propeller, one can make simulation to calculate
the air pressure around propeller. Mathematically, one can use Eq. (1) to calculate
coefficient thrust on rotor based on the thrust data given by simulation. The pro-
peller’s surface area in this simulation is 0.3181 m2. Pressure as a function of
surface area can be used to calculate thrust as seen in Eq. (4).

T =P⋅A ð4Þ

From the equation above, P is the average value of pressure on propeller and A is
the propeller’s surface area. Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by
Newton’s second and third laws which in this case force exerted by a rotation
propeller perpendicular to the surface. Thrust movement, which generated by each
rotor propeller through the torque, creating two kinds of force i.e. force of gravity
which acts earthward and the total force in the vehicle frame. The pressure exerted
by propeller airflow is identical in magnitude in all directions, hence it is scalar, and
can be defined as force per unit area.
Quadcopter has four rotors and four propellers with identical size and specifi-
cations. The distance between each rotor propeller is also identical, therefore only a
part of quadcopter frame was used in this modeling to get the illustration of airflow
trajectory, as seen on Fig. 4. As one pair of opposite rotors spin clockwise and the
other pair spin counter clockwise, each will produce thrust due to the change in

Top View

X
Front View

Surface 1 Y
Surface 2 X

Fig. 4 Illustration of propeller’s flow trajectory

274 E. Kuantama et al.

momentum of the downward moving air. This process is called the dynamic effect
of the air acting by the airfoil propeller. With the same velocity, each rotor will also
generate the same thrust providing the resulted airflow not affecting each other. If
they affect each other, it will inflict the instability of thrust produced by each rotor,
because the air velocity was affected by outlet airflow generated by surrounding
rotor [12]. By knowing the rotor’s maximum velocity and the size of propeller used,
one can calculate the required size of quadcopter frame based on airflow movement
on each propeller.
Using this illustration, one can simulate pressure on surface 1 and surface 2
according to specific angular velocity. Surface 1 is the top of propeller and surface 2
is the bottom. The magnitude of pressure occurred on propeller’s surface area is
equal to the difference between both average values of surface area. Propeller’s
angular velocity lies in the range of 1000–9000 rpm. Inside this interval, angular
velocity will produce pressure across the propeller rotation area. Based on airfoil
theory, the pressure on the surface 1 should be lower than the pressure on surface 2.
This theory was proved true by the simulation result as seen on Fig. 5 in which the
angular velocity of 5000 rpm generate average pressure of 101369 Pa on surface 2,
which was bigger compared with the average pressure of 101328 Pa on surface 1.
As much as 129 iterations were done during simulation process to get the amount of
air pressure produced by propeller rotation.
Pressure data gathered from each rotation surface area showed that thrust gen-
erated by propeller can be calculated using Eq. (4). The results were obtained by
increasing propeller’s angular velocity in steps of 1000 rpm in the entire specified
domain (1000–9000 rpm) and these can be seen on Table 1.

Fig. 5 Air pressure around propeller

Quadcopter Propeller Design and Performance Analysis 275

Table 1 Simulation thrust results for propeller 16 × 5 inch

Angular Average Average P2 – P1 (Pa) Thrust (N) Thrust (gf)
velocity pressure 1 pressure 2
(rpm) (Pa) (Pa)
1000 101325.1478 101326.8054 1.65758985 0.527279331 53.76752829
2000 101325.59 101332.26 6.67 2.121727 216.3559421
3000 101326.3431 101341.3027 14.95954363 4.758630828 485.2453007
4000 101327.4095 101354.1243 26.71471157 8.497949749 866.5497136
5000 101328.89 101369.81 40.92 13.016652 1327.329108
6000 101330.427 101388.1671 57.74002751 18.36710275 1872.923246
7000 101331.3793 101409.8204 78.4410744 24.95210577 2544.40668
8000 101334.2537 101437.6685 103.4148486 32.89626334 3354.485307
9000 101335.6342 101463.3904 127.756233 40.63925772 4144.050998

The thrust generated by propeller rotation significantly increases when the

angular velocity is greater than 5000 rpm. One rotor can generate maximum thrust
of 4144 g-force (gf) at 9000 rpm, so that, by using all 4 rotors, quadcopter can
generate 16.6 kgf of thrust. From this simulation result, one can estimate the
maximum carry load and flying speed of quadcopter. To ensure the validity of this
simulation results, the data was compared with commercial rotor specification
having the same propeller size [13]. Figure 6. shows the comparison chart of
simulation data and rotor type MT4144, 4004 and MN3508. The results show that
the simulation data were not significantly different from existing commercial rotors
when the angular velocity was lower than 5000 rpm. For the propeller angular
velocity of 6000 rpm, the error was 16 %. This difference can be explained due to
differences in propeller geometry used in measurements, such as differences in
chord line, angle pitch, etc.

3
4

Fig. 6 Comparison between simulation and rotor specifications

276 E. Kuantama et al.

Data from Table 1 can be used to analyze propeller’s thrust coefficient using
Eq. (1) for each angular velocity. The coefficient thrust for designed propeller
16 × 5 inch is 0.04. From this data, the magnitude of propeller’s power efficiency
can be calculated based on power needed to generate specific thrust. This obviously
depends on the type of the rotor used. Equation (3) can be used to calculate the
power efficiency of propeller based on power consumption in each rotor.

5 Conclusions

Designing the model for propeller helps on computing the generated thrust, thus
one can decide which propeller type can be properly used. Not all commercial rotor
propellers have thrust specification. Propeller with size 16 × 5 inch was analyzed
and the result was similar to the specification of existing commercial rotor. This
proved that computational modeling can be used to analyze propeller. The thrust
generated was 53–4144 gf for 1000–9000 rpm. The designed propeller has a thrust
coefficient of 0.04 which affect the angle of attack in chord line propeller. One can
notice a little difference in thrust result between simulation and commercial thrust,
due to different thrust coefficient on propeller, which in this case could not be
compared since there is no geometry specification for commercial rotor.

Acknowledgments This work has been funded under the LEADERS—Erasmus Mundus Grant
(agreement number 2014-0855/001-001) by European Commission, through the Education,
Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, in the Action Plan 2 for the years 2014–2018.

References

1. Veloso, R., et al.: A platform for the design, simulation and development of quadcopter
multi-agent systems. Inf. Syst. Technol. (CISTI) 1–6 (2014)
2. Gheorghita, V.-M.: Quadcopter control system. In: System Theory, Control and Computing
(ICSTCC), pp. 421–426 (2015)
3. Haque, M.-S., Muhammad, M., Swarnaker, D.: Autonomous quadcopter for product home
delivery. In: Electrical Engineering and Information and Communication Technology
(ICEEICT), pp. 1–5 (2014)
4. Magnussen, O., Ottestad, M., Hovland, G.: Experimental validation of a quaternion-based
attitude estimation with direct input to a quadcopter control system. In: International
Conference of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 480–485 (2013)
5. Bouabdallah, S., Siegwart, R.: Full control of a quadrotor. In: International Conference on
Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 153–158 (2007)
6. Bristeau, P.J., et al.: The role of propeller aerodynamics in the model of a quadrotor UAV. In:
The European Control Conference, Budapest-Hungary, pp. 683–688 (2009)
7. Czyba, R., Szafranski, G.: Control structure impact on the flying performance of the
multi-rotor VTOL platform—design, analysis and experimental validation. Int. J. Adv. Robot.
Syst. (2012)
Quadcopter Propeller Design and Performance Analysis 277

8. Yang, Y., Veldhuis, L.L.M., Eitelberg, G.: Investigation of propeller induced ground vortices
by numerical and experimental methods. In: AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference,
pp. 1–12 (2015)
9. Heinzen, S.B., Hall Jr, C.E.: Development and testing of a passive variable-pitch propeller.
J. Aircr. 748–763 (2015)
10. Gur, O.: Maximum propeller efficiency estimation. J. Aircr. 2035–2038 (2015)
11. Petrova, R., Lemu, H.G.: Design study for dynamic behavior of wind turbine blade. In:
International Workshop of Advanced Manufacturing and Automation, pp. 131–138 (2010)
12. Shyam, S., et al.: Computational fluid dynamic study on a novel propulsive system and its
integration with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). J. Aerosp. Eng. 1–16 (2015)
13. Available via T-Motor website http://www.rctigermotor.com/. Accessed 21 Jan 2016