Description:

My team is developing a human-powered aircraft to compete for the Kremer International Marathon Prize, and I designed our propeller. I learned propeller design theory and coded a command line program using Python. The output is the 3D-model of a propeller blade that is the most suitable for the expected flight conditions.

The program communicates with Xfoil and Xrotor (two aerodynamic analysis programs) to iteratively design the propeller. I was able to reduce computation time by a factor of 4 by using Python multi-core processing libraries.

The design tool was tested by prototyping a propeller. The results were satisfactory.

Languages:

Python

Platforms:

Command Line

Tools:

Python Multiprocessing