Transient CFD Simulation of Entire Flight Envelope of Full Vehicle Commercial Quadcopter

In recent years, multicopter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), commonly known as drones, have significantly grown in popularity for both commercial and personal applications. As drone manufacturers face increasing pressure to accelerate development, a robust methodology for aerodynamic flow analysis is essential. Multicopter systems present unique challenges due to their high maneuverability, which expands their operational envelope across a wide range of aircraft angles. Moreover, the complex interactions between rotor wakes and rotor arms, as well as the overall flow topology, necessitate a full-model, transient simulation approach for accurately evaluating the airflow around a drone. This study employs 3D fully transient Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM) simulations to analyze the airflow around a commercially available drone. The simulation results are validated against wind tunnel data across a broad range of operating points in forward flight conditions. The results demonstrate excellent agreement with experimental data. A detailed transient flow analysis reveals that, at high angles of attack, the airflow around the drone is highly unsteady, with vortex shedding cascades that strongly interact with the rotors.