RQ-7 Shadow Drone CFD Simulation, ANSYS Fluent

Description

AAI RQ-7 Shadow UAV CFD Simulation, ANSYS Fluent Tutorial

Introduction

The smallest of AAI’s RQ-7 Shadow family of unmanned aircraft systems is the RQ-7 Shadow 200. Targets can be found, recognized, and identified using Shadow 200 up to 125 kilometers away from a tactical center. The device can identify tactical vehicles day or night from a height of 8,000 feet and at a distance of 3.5 kilometers on a slant.

A trailer-mounted pneumatic launcher helps with takeoffs and has the ability to accelerate a 170-kilogram aircraft to 130 km/h in 12 m.

The Tactical Automatic Landing System, which consists of an aircraft-mounted transponder and a ground-based micro-millimeter wavelength radar, directs landings.

An AAI RQ-7 Shadow UAV is modeled in this simulation using ANSYS Fluent software. The device moves at a speed of 36.1 m/s while the propeller rotates at an angular velocity of 3800 rev/min.

The geometry of the present model is two-dimensional and has been designed using Design Modeler software. We do the meshing of the present model with Fluent Meshing software. The mesh type is Polyhedra, and the element number is 5,449,057.

Methodology: RQ-7 Shadow UAV CFD Simulation

The Multiple Reference Frames (MRF) method is used to model the rotational motion of the propellers.

Conclusion

After the simulation process was finished, contours and vectors for parameters such as velocity and pressure were obtained. As shown in the velocity contours, the vortexes behind the propeller are visible. The Reverse V-tale is opposed so that these vortexes don’t hit it, which results in good dynamic stability.

In the static pressure parameter case, as it was predictable, the UAV’s front surfaces endure the highest pressure. The maximum static pressure is applied to the propellers’ edges, which tells us about the necessity of the manufacturing focus on this component.

The force exerted in the vertical direction to the UAV is 202.80495N.