EP4051581A1 - Smart electric ducted fan - Google Patents
Smart electric ducted fanInfo
- Publication number
- EP4051581A1 EP4051581A1 EP20797767.9A EP20797767A EP4051581A1 EP 4051581 A1 EP4051581 A1 EP 4051581A1 EP 20797767 A EP20797767 A EP 20797767A EP 4051581 A1 EP4051581 A1 EP 4051581A1
- Authority
- EP
- European Patent Office
- Prior art keywords
- duct
- motor
- hub
- stator
- data
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Pending
Links
- 238000001816 cooling Methods 0.000 claims description 9
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims description 5
- RZVHIXYEVGDQDX-UHFFFAOYSA-N 9,10-anthraquinone Chemical compound C1=CC=C2C(=O)C3=CC=CC=C3C(=O)C2=C1 RZVHIXYEVGDQDX-UHFFFAOYSA-N 0.000 claims description 2
- 241000238631 Hexapoda Species 0.000 description 14
- 238000013461 design Methods 0.000 description 9
- 238000012360 testing method Methods 0.000 description 9
- 238000011068 loading method Methods 0.000 description 8
- XLYOFNOQVPJJNP-UHFFFAOYSA-N water Substances O XLYOFNOQVPJJNP-UHFFFAOYSA-N 0.000 description 8
- 239000002245 particle Substances 0.000 description 5
- 238000004519 manufacturing process Methods 0.000 description 4
- 238000013021 overheating Methods 0.000 description 4
- 239000004417 polycarbonate Substances 0.000 description 4
- 238000012544 monitoring process Methods 0.000 description 3
- 229920000515 polycarbonate Polymers 0.000 description 3
- 230000006378 damage Effects 0.000 description 2
- 238000002474 experimental method Methods 0.000 description 2
- 230000037406 food intake Effects 0.000 description 2
- OKTJSMMVPCPJKN-UHFFFAOYSA-N Carbon Chemical compound [C] OKTJSMMVPCPJKN-UHFFFAOYSA-N 0.000 description 1
- 101150004094 PRO2 gene Proteins 0.000 description 1
- 239000000654 additive Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000000996 additive effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000004458 analytical method Methods 0.000 description 1
- 229910052799 carbon Inorganic materials 0.000 description 1
- 238000012512 characterization method Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000004140 cleaning Methods 0.000 description 1
- 150000001875 compounds Chemical class 0.000 description 1
- 230000006835 compression Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000007906 compression Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000003292 diminished effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000009826 distribution Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000000694 effects Effects 0.000 description 1
- 239000000835 fiber Substances 0.000 description 1
- 239000011152 fibreglass Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000001914 filtration Methods 0.000 description 1
- 239000003365 glass fiber Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000017525 heat dissipation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000010438 heat treatment Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000002347 injection Methods 0.000 description 1
- 239000007924 injection Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000001746 injection moulding Methods 0.000 description 1
- 239000000463 material Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000005259 measurement Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000003287 optical effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000012805 post-processing Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000000630 rising effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000035945 sensitivity Effects 0.000 description 1
- 239000000243 solution Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000003068 static effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000002459 sustained effect Effects 0.000 description 1
Classifications
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H02—GENERATION; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER
- H02K—DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES
- H02K7/00—Arrangements for handling mechanical energy structurally associated with dynamo-electric machines, e.g. structural association with mechanical driving motors or auxiliary dynamo-electric machines
- H02K7/14—Structural association with mechanical loads, e.g. with hand-held machine tools or fans
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B64—AIRCRAFT; AVIATION; COSMONAUTICS
- B64C—AEROPLANES; HELICOPTERS
- B64C11/00—Propellers, e.g. of ducted type; Features common to propellers and rotors for rotorcraft
- B64C11/001—Shrouded propellers
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B64—AIRCRAFT; AVIATION; COSMONAUTICS
- B64D—EQUIPMENT FOR FITTING IN OR TO AIRCRAFT; FLIGHT SUITS; PARACHUTES; ARRANGEMENTS OR MOUNTING OF POWER PLANTS OR PROPULSION TRANSMISSIONS IN AIRCRAFT
- B64D27/00—Arrangement or mounting of power plant in aircraft; Aircraft characterised thereby
- B64D27/02—Aircraft characterised by the type or position of power plant
- B64D27/24—Aircraft characterised by the type or position of power plant using steam, electricity, or spring force
-
- F—MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING
- F02—COMBUSTION ENGINES; HOT-GAS OR COMBUSTION-PRODUCT ENGINE PLANTS
- F02K—JET-PROPULSION PLANTS
- F02K5/00—Plants including an engine, other than a gas turbine, driving a compressor or a ducted fan
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H02—GENERATION; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER
- H02K—DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES
- H02K9/00—Arrangements for cooling or ventilating
- H02K9/02—Arrangements for cooling or ventilating by ambient air flowing through the machine
- H02K9/04—Arrangements for cooling or ventilating by ambient air flowing through the machine having means for generating a flow of cooling medium
- H02K9/06—Arrangements for cooling or ventilating by ambient air flowing through the machine having means for generating a flow of cooling medium with fans or impellers driven by the machine shaft
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B64—AIRCRAFT; AVIATION; COSMONAUTICS
- B64C—AEROPLANES; HELICOPTERS
- B64C29/00—Aircraft capable of landing or taking-off vertically, e.g. vertical take-off and landing [VTOL] aircraft
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B64—AIRCRAFT; AVIATION; COSMONAUTICS
- B64D—EQUIPMENT FOR FITTING IN OR TO AIRCRAFT; FLIGHT SUITS; PARACHUTES; ARRANGEMENTS OR MOUNTING OF POWER PLANTS OR PROPULSION TRANSMISSIONS IN AIRCRAFT
- B64D15/00—De-icing or preventing icing on exterior surfaces of aircraft
- B64D15/02—De-icing or preventing icing on exterior surfaces of aircraft by ducted hot gas or liquid
- B64D15/04—Hot gas application
-
- Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
- Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
- Y02T—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TO TRANSPORTATION
- Y02T50/00—Aeronautics or air transport
- Y02T50/60—Efficient propulsion technologies, e.g. for aircraft
Definitions
- the present invention relates to the field of electric and electric- hybrid aviation and in particular to the design of electric ducted fans.
- EDFs electric ducted fans
- VTOL vertical take-off and landing flight
- EDF effective power loading of an EDF as (the thrust produced - weight of fan including motor and control electronics)/electrical power consumed, then virtually all EDFs today are characterized by values less than 1.5g/W.
- the flight duration of a wingless drone powered by a plurality of EDF units without payload is directly proportional to the average effective power loading of the EDFs employed given simple assumptions concerning the drone structure weight.
- Wingless drones based on EDFs rather than free propellers are often to be preferred for a variety of reasons including their smaller size and their much-improved safety afforded by the absence of free blades.
- the present invention therefore describes an improved type of EDF which can be designed to have either a large, medium or small effective power loading, is intrinsically thermally cool, is compact, has inbuilt comprehensive remote engine health monitoring, intrinsically provides deicing and is also rain and insect resistant.
- the present invention describes an electric ducted fan (EDF) comprising a rotor and a stator within a duct for the production of thrust.
- EDF electric ducted fan
- the central part of the motor comprises: a centrifugal fan mounted directly in front of the rotor for recirculation of hot post-rotor air, a cylindrical rotor hub, a cylindrical stator hub and a tapering compressive tail cone.
- the rotor is driven by a single brushless electric motor.
- the base of this motor is mounted within the cylindrical stator hub in the centre of the EDF.
- Stator blades radiate from the stator hub out to the duct wall thereby securing the stator hub to the duct.
- the front end of the motor is mounted into the cylindrical rotor hub such that the rotor blades broadly straddle the two bearings of the motor.
- the induced swirl is greatly diminished by the action of the stator blades. Thrust is generated by the duct, the rotor and the stator.
- a small proportion of the accelerated air is redirected into the base of the motor via a compressive tail cone and is pumped back through the centre of the motor (flowing directly over the motor coils) by the centrifugal fan mounted in front of the main rotor; this fan acts to depressurise the air above the motor coils and under the front cap so dragging back air towards the main inlet of the duct where it is expelled into the main flow.
- the motor is very effectively cooled by the recirculated air and hot air is also injected into the EDF inlet, heating the blades and preventing icing.
- the electronic speed controller (ESC) required to run the motor is mounted within the tail-cone of the EDF.
- an infrared sensor to measure the rear axle temperature of the motor
- a microcontroller with Wi-Fi e.g. ESP-32
- a voltage regulator for said micro-controller e.g. ESP-32
- the rotor hub/stator hub junction is usually engineered in the present invention to be angled in a reverse direction to the main flow and the diagonal gap between the two hubs is kept to an absolute minimum.
- the compressive tail cone then insures that the pressure difference across the stator hub - rotor hub interface is either small or in such a direction that air is expelled from this interface into the main flow. As such ingress of rain, particles or insects cannot occur at the stator hub-rotor hub interface.
- a person skilled in the art will understand that there are many similar methods of insuring absence of particulate and water ingress at this junction including for example arranging for a larger rotor hub to overlap a smaller stator hub...
- Ingress of particles, rain and insects can however occur at the compression inlet(s) of the compressive tail cone.
- one or more small outlets towards the rear of the cone can be used to act to create a partial exit flow of the heavier entrained particles such as water droplets and insects; as all such heavy entrained matter has considerable inertia in the main flow direction and cannot simply reverse direction and flow back towards the motor.
- Various combinations of vents and mesh filters are then used to evacuate any rain entering the tail cone and to either evacuate or trap insects and particles ingested; in the latter case these can then be removed at a later stage by cleaning and changing of said mesh filters.
- the design philosophy of the current invention is to actively create a reverse axial airflow in the core of the EDF.
- This flow can then be used to effectively and very efficiently cool a brushless DC electric motor by direct flow of cool air over the motor coils.
- the motor heat is then also used usefully as a de-icing system rather than being radiated away as is usually the case with prior-art EDF designs.
- the reverse flow makes it much easier to prevent particulate and water ingress into the motor and indeed allows for the only such place of ingress to effectively be at the rear of the EDF downstream of the electronics package and in a location where inertial and physical filtering can easily deal with such ingress in a safe way.
- the fan is composed of a duct (1) with inlet lip (6); a rotor hub (2) in which are mounted seven rotor blades (e.g. 4); a stator hub (3) attached to the duct by 5 stator blades (e.g. 5); a compressive cone(7); a centrifugal fan with cap (10) comprising 18 impeller blades (e.g.
- Fig.2. Electric Ducted fan described in the first embodiment of the invention showing main air flow and reverse cooling flow. Air enters at the front of the duct and is accelerated by the rotor, stator and duct, thereby creating thrust, to exit at the rear (e.g. streamlines 21,22). A small proportion of the main accelerated flow enters the compressive tail-cone at inlet(s) 25/26, thereby pressurizing the interior of the cone and stator hub (27) and in particular the region immediately below the motor (28). Low pressure is simultaneously arranged at the top of the motor (28) via action of the centrifugal fan (Figl./lO with Blades Figl./ll). In this way a pressure difference is sustained across the motor driving flow from the base of the motor to the top where it is expelled by the centrifugal fan (e.g. streamlines 29,30), thereby cooling said motor.
- the centrifugal fan e.g. streamlines 29,30
- Fig.3 Electric Ducted fan described in the first embodiment of the invention showing detail of the blade design used in the centrifugal fan.
- 18 blades e.g. 32
- Figs 1, 2 and 3 illustrate the preferred embodiment of the invention.
- the EDF described here has been designed for VTOL applications as is characterised by a value of effective power loading which exceeds 3g/W.
- the EDF could be designed instead to be more suitable for linear flight by designing the blades and shroud to give a lower effective power loading and more dynamic thrust. All other design elements would remain then the same.
- Most of the major mechanical components of the EDF were 3D printed using Ultimaker 2+ machines and a Raise3D Pro2 machine. All 3D printed parts were made from PolyPC polycarbonate material which confers high mechanical strength and good temperature characteristics. Semi-automated abrasive post processing was used to improve surface quality to that required for aeronautical applications.
- Rotor and Stator Blades were designed using analytic Euler Theory using a Vortex free swirl distribution and cascade formulae after which optimisation was applied from CFD analysis.
- the initial design point was for 700W shaft power/ 9000 RPM / 35N Thrust at STP with a hub diameter of 60mm and an inner shroud diameter of 180mm.
- the outer shroud diameter was 220mm.
- the 7 rotor blades were injection moulded using Polycarbonate incorporating 20% glass fibre and were post-processed to an SPI A3 finish.
- the 5 stator blades were 3D printed in PC. One of the stator blades was slightly over sized to accommodate passage of the electrical wires.
- a brushless DC outrunner T-motor 4014400kv was used as the motor and was operated at 8S/33V at 900W average power. Maximum instantaneous power was 1300W.
- the control electronics consisted of a T-motor HV-60 ESC which was mounted behind the motor within the stator. Also mounted in the stator compartment were an ESC32 microcontroller and WIFI chip, a custom 5V switched mode regulator, an MPU6000 accelerometer, a custom current sensor, an HW86060041 RPM sensor, a custom voltage sensor and an optical GY906 temperature sensor which was secured to the rear of the stator hub and which pointed directly at the motor axle.
- the ESP32 was programmed to broadcast UDP packets every 1 second containing information about the motor temperature, voltage, current, RPM and vibration to a Raspberry Pi microcomputer which was part of an inhouse test bench for EDFs.
- the test bench also measured Thrust.
- graphs of temperature, RPM, Power, Vibration and thrust could be plotted versus time over extended periods.
- the total weight of the EDF including motor, ESC, all "SMART" electronics and connectors was measured at 85Og.
- the maximum thrust measured at 1290W was 40.5N.
- Testing of the EDF was performed initially outside under a variety of weather conditions, including occasionally heavy rain and wind over a continuous period of 1 month.
- the operation of the EDF was controlled automatically by a computer to regular 15-minute periods of simulated VTOL flight data (average power 900W with high frequency excursions up to 1300W recorded from a real drone flight), followed by 5 minutes of inactivity after which another period of 15 mins ensued. This regime was continued Monday-Friday 9.00am to 5pm for 1 month over the summer period.
- the ambient temperature during the test period ranged from 15C to 38C. At the end of each day, insects were removed from the blades and shroud and the EDF cleaned with water.
- the present embodiment has targeted an EDF which has been designed for VTOL use.
- this EDF produces a higher "Static" thrust at low efflux speed rather than a more dynamic thrust characterised by a faster efflux air speed.
- the same methodology can be applied to even highly dynamic fans.
- the thermal power which must be dissipated is higher - but then the air-velocity and pressure increase produced by the rotor is also greater in this case.
- the concept of reverse-flow axial cooling is likely to find application is virtually all forms of EDF.
Abstract
Description
Claims
Applications Claiming Priority (3)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
GB1915944.1A GB2589072A (en) | 2019-11-01 | 2019-11-01 | Smart electric ducted fan |
LU101507 | 2019-12-03 | ||
PCT/EP2020/080588 WO2021084105A1 (en) | 2019-11-01 | 2020-10-30 | Smart electric ducted fan |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
EP4051581A1 true EP4051581A1 (en) | 2022-09-07 |
Family
ID=73030148
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
EP20797767.9A Pending EP4051581A1 (en) | 2019-11-01 | 2020-10-30 | Smart electric ducted fan |
Country Status (2)
Country | Link |
---|---|
EP (1) | EP4051581A1 (en) |
WO (1) | WO2021084105A1 (en) |
Family Cites Families (5)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US7819641B2 (en) * | 2007-03-05 | 2010-10-26 | Xcelaero Corporation | Reverse flow cooling for fan motor |
CN101725431A (en) * | 2008-10-31 | 2010-06-09 | 南昌航空大学 | Electric fuel oil jet propeller |
EP2875718B1 (en) * | 2013-11-22 | 2019-06-05 | Andreas Stihl AG & Co. KG | Hand-held work device with a blowpipe |
DE102014209410B4 (en) * | 2014-05-19 | 2020-07-09 | Daniel Schübeler | Cooling system for an electric motor |
CN106714642A (en) * | 2014-09-15 | 2017-05-24 | 翼科技有限责任公司 | Portable electrically powered debris blower apparatus |
-
2020
- 2020-10-30 WO PCT/EP2020/080588 patent/WO2021084105A1/en unknown
- 2020-10-30 EP EP20797767.9A patent/EP4051581A1/en active Pending
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
WO2021084105A1 (en) | 2021-05-06 |
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Owner name: BROTHERTON-RATCLIFFE, DAVID |
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Effective date: 20231204 |