Steady flow around a serrated propeller for mini-remotely piloted aircraft

The influence of trailing-edge serrations on the steady flow around a propeller blade for a mini-remotely piloted aircraft is investigated. A reference blade operating at low advance ratio is modified with sawtooth and sine-wave serrations while maintaining a thin trailing edge in both instances. The distribution of the pressure and skin-friction load on the blade is studied as well as the details of the primary flow around the rotating blade, i.e. the axial and rotational components, and the secondary flow, i.e. the spanwise and cross-passage components resulting from the balance of the pressure gradient with the Coriolis and centripetal accelerations. The proposed serrations do not impact overall cruise performance such as propeller torque force and thrust and do not modify the primary or secondary flow fields.