Modeling, analysis, and fabrication of a composite propeller of an ultralight aircraft

Nowadays, ultralight airplanes use composite propellers to create propulsion due to their high strength andlow weight. This paper is about the process of modeling, analysis, and fabrication of a composite propeller based on anactual sample. The first step is to have that propeller's point cloud file. A ۳D model of the cloud of points was obtainedusing CAD software. In the analysis of finite elements according to the movement of a structure in the fluid, the one-waycoupling of fluid-solid interaction (FSI) has been used. Finally, the safety factor of the propeller after performing thebasic analysis based on the Tsai-Wu theory was obtained as ۱.۳۷۳. Then, to improve the propeller in terms of mass orprice, by changing the characteristics such as the number of layers, the material of the layers, the material of the core,etc., the results of other modes were examined. After making the prototype with ۳D printing, the designed mold wasmade of aluminum metal, and preparations were made for making the propeller with the hand-layup method.