https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-01813-7
Regular Article
Influence of blade, hub, and nacelle modeling on propeller–wing interactions in turboprop simulations
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India
Received:
2
May
2025
Accepted:
16
July
2025
Published online:
26
July
2025
Accurate modeling of propellers is vital for the design of turboprop aircraft as well as other propeller-driven vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These flows are challenging to simulate due to propeller-induced swirl and complex wake interactions, and such simulations are often computationally expensive. This study evaluates the fidelity and efficiency of the Virtual Blade Model (VBM), which replaces the propeller with a virtual disk and enables faster simulations under realistic turbulent flow conditions. For an isolated four-bladed propeller, VBM predicts thrust and torque accurately up to an advance ratio of 
, outperforming the Blade Element Method (BEM). The validated VBM model is subsequently employed for turboprop simulations in a tractor configuration. VBM captures key aerodynamic trends but underpredicts drag by 27%, due to the absence of drag-producing components such as the hub and nacelle. When these components are incorporated into the VBM framework, wake resolution improves significantly, and the drag error is reduced to 5.5%. For high angle-of-attack simulations, VBM exhibits limitations beyond 
due to nonlinear flow effects. Overall, VBM offers a cost-effective approach for analyzing propeller–body interactions with engineering-level accuracy.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
