CFD-based study on swirl recovery vanes for transonic propeller wake recovery

This study investigates the aerodynamic influence of Swirl Recovery Vanes (SRVs) integrated with the SR3 rotor in a transonic tractor propeller system. Computational simulations were performed using Analysis System Computational Fluid Dynamics (ANSYS CFX) R to evaluate SRV configurations with ten and twelve blades, all designed with a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) 4703 airfoil profile. The investigation was conducted at an altitude of 35,000 feet, with a freestream Mach number of 0.8 and an advance ratio of 3.6. The findings indicate that increasing the SRV blade count enhances swirl recovery, leading to improved axial velocity and reduced swirl losses. Among the examined configurations, the ten bladed SRV setup demonstrated the highest overall efficiency, achieving a propeller thrust coefficient improvement of 5.09%. The twelve bladed configuration also showed improved swirl recovery but did not surpass the efficiency gains observed with the ten bladed setup. Additionally, increasing the SRV pitch angle contributed to an 8.76% enhancement in the propeller thrust coefficient. These results underscore the significance of selecting an appropriate SRV blade count and pitch angle to maximize propulsion efficiency in high-speed aircraft applications.