Electric. RCAircraft. Guy. com RC, Arduino, Programming, Electronics Propeller Static Dynamic Thrust Calculation. SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO RECEIVE MY BLOG UPDATES CLICK ENVELOPE TO THE RIGHT, INPUT EMAIL Propeller Static Dynamic Thrust Calculation. By Gabriel Staples. Written 1. 6 July 2. Last Updated 1. 3 April 2. Simplified form of eqn. Oct. 2. 01. 3 added links to Part 2 of this article 1. Apr. 2. 01. 4Other Articles Propeller Thrust Equation, Downloadable Excel Spreadsheet Thrust Calculator I have been interested in propellers for a very long time. Ive also been interested in how they produce thrust, and how forward velocity affects that thrust. Therefore, Ive done a lot of thinking about it, and put a lot of time into understanding them better. Here is an equation that I came up with to quantify the thrust produced by propellers. I wanted it to be a simple approximation, with a minimal number of inputs. Therefore, it uses only the propellers pitch and diameter from the numbers on the front of the prop, and the RPMs at which the prop is spinning this can be measured from a basic optical tachometer such as the one shown in the picture to the left. Thats it Here is the equation. The expanded form is shown to help you see where some of the numbers come from. The simplified form is shown to help you put the equation into a calculator or Excel spreadsheet easier. Eqn. 1 Thrust Equations, expanded and simplified forms. F is static or dynamic thrust it is called static thrust if V0 0, in units of newtons N RPM is propeller rotations per minute pitch is propeller pitch, in inches d is propeller diameter, in inches and V0 is the forward airspeed, freestream velocity, or inflow velocity depending on what you want to call it, in ms. If you want thrust in other units to convert newtons to grams, multiply newtons by 1. To then convert grams to ounces, multiply grams by 0. To convert ounces to pounds, divide ounces by 1. Note the equation has a hard coded atmospheric density of 1. Therefore, it will provide a thrust estimate assuming you are at sea level. Example DOWNLOAD MY EXCEL SPREADSHEET THRUST CALCULATOR HERE click link, then go to File DownloadFigure 2 Dynamic thrust for a 1. RPM. Here is a thrust example, to demonstrate the use of the equation above. Refer to the plot just above, copied from my spreadsheet thrust calculator, whose link is just above the plot. The example is as follows an airplane has a 1. RPMs when at full throttle on the bench. How much static thrust is it producing Answer using the equation above, the propeller is producing 1. World Time Manager 2 7 Cracker. Download the spreadsheet above to change the values for your application. At what airspeed will it produce zero thrust ie what is its max thrust producing airspeedAnswer 6. Note the 6. 0mph is also the pitch speed of the propeller, which is an underestimate of the actual max thrust producing airspeed, since I have not yet corrected the dynamic thrust portion of the equation for the effects of things such as camber of the propeller and the unloading of the prop with increasing airspeed. How Accurate Is This Equation Advertisement. Short answer Static Thrust. Its a pretty good to decent ball park estimate for all props, and a really good estimator for some props. For static thrust, consider the thrust calculation to give you a thrust value accurate to within 2. Slow Fly SF props are the least accurate, and usually produce much more static thrust up to 6. Therefore, the worst case scenario is that your actual thrust will be 1. I looked at, this only occurred this dramatically in one of the SF prop cases. Dynamic Thrust For dynamic thrust, consider the equation to be an underestimate of what the propeller is actually doing, by 1. RPM value from a static test run. For extrapolating out dynamic thrust from a static test run, a good guess is that the actual zero thrust airspeed will be around 1. In other words, if the equation says you get zero thrust at 6. As I get more dynamic thrust data, Ill work on correcting this to increase the accuracy and confidence of my estimate. Long answer Static Thrust. Once I got my analytical form of the equation, with many big assumptions. I took 1. 49 data points of actual, measured static thrusts from various. I did an empirical fit to get an. The prop sizes ranged from as small as 5x. After. applying the correction factor, here are my results. Blue diamonds are actual, measured static. Red squares are my calculated. V0 0. As you can see, my semi empirical. All it takes into account, aside from. RPMs, diameter. and pitch. For the below plot. For 6. 8 of the cases, or 1. For 5. 8 of the 1. The underestimates were most dramatic for Slow Fly SF style props. My equation. is most accurate for standard props, and least accurate for SF style. SF props tend to generate significantly more static thrust due to their. Figure 3 1. 49 Data points of actual vs. Dynamic Thrust. Whereas Ive had 1. Sept. 2. 01. 3, I have only had one data point to compare to for dynamic thrust. Therefore, I still have a lot of work to do. Here is that data point below, graciously obtained from Matthew Mc. Crink of Ohio State University. As the dynamic thrust plot. The experimental thrust. RPM is linear. RPMs do increase with freestream velocity. RPM plot farther below, also obtained from that experimental data point, as I also hypothesized presumably because drag on the blades. One other thing to. Vpitch, since the propeller will have an incident. Vpitch V0. In other words, the value of the freestream. RPM. However, on a real propeller, with a. Perhaps this. explains why my thrust calculation is an underestimation when compared to the. V0 Vpitch, and. Again, this. Figure 4 Dynamic thrust wind tunnel data vs. Equation 1. Figure 5 RPM vs. Figure 6 Propeller diagram, showing how the blade strikes the air, and how its apparent angle of attack, decreases with increasing forward airspeed. How Did I Come Up With This Equation Read here Propeller Static Dynamic Thrust Calculation Part 2 of 2 How Did I Come Up With This EquationPlease help contribute your thrust data to this project, to help me improve the equation, by clicking here. Thanks for reading Sign in with your Google Account or Open. ID to post questions or comments below.