Range impact of a high velocity aft-propeller on a subsonic aerodynamic body

Abstract: This master’s thesis is aimed to examine the possible range increase of a ballistically fying body equipped with a propeller working at transonic velocities. To determine whetherthe propeller will provide an improvement in range, results from simulations are compared to corresponding cases of similar bodies fying without a propeller. Different airfoil geometries were examined using the computer software Fluent. Thereafter, a geometry was created from scratch based on wing and propeller theory and was simulated on using the computer software ICFD++ which, may be used for computational fuid dynamics. According to the simulations the increase in range was shown to be 3-4% further for the specifc projectile chosen for this work. For the furthest fying cases the initial velocity of the body was higher than what the propeller had been optimized for, and regions of supersonic velocities developed on the geometry. This did however not impose any substantial impediments according to the simulations, although a field test would likely have displayed stalling and following, a worsening of performance.