Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: High-efficiency propeller design is essential for reducing the total mass of near-space airships under low-Reynolds-number conditions. This study optimizes the overall design parameters of near-space airships by integrating an efficient engineering propeller design method based on characteristic blade elements. This overall configuration yields results close to those obtained from single-objective optimization of the propellers. Through analysis of the overall configuration, it is evident that there is limited room for optimization in terms of propeller efficiency improvement. Therefore, a variable-speed strategy that accounts for different flight speeds during day and night is proposed. The variable-speed strategy achieves a 29.6% reduction in total airship mass compared to the constant-speed baseline. These findings verify that optimizing flight speeds and propeller efficiency is effective for achieving lightweight airship designs.
Source: Drones
Authors: Guoquan Tao, Jizheng Zhang, Cong Xie, Ruixue Song, Bin Xiang, Jialin Chen, Qingyu Kang, Jun Yin
Institution: Beihang University
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7127195943