High-Fidelity Simulations of a Quadrotor Vehicle for Urban Air Mobility

High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations have been carried out to analyze NASA’s quadrotor air taxi concept for urban air mobility. High-order accurate schemes, dual-time stepping, and the delayed detached-eddy simulation model have been employed. The flow solver has been loosely coupled with the rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code. The vehicle simulated is a six-passenger quadrotor for air taxi operations. The quadrotor has been simulated in hover and cruise, with flight conditions representative of an air taxi mission. Initially, the quadcopter vehicle is analyzed using low-fidelity tools. Then, a complete analysis using high-fidelity simulations of the quadcopter is performed in conjunction with collective pitch control. Airloads, wake geometry, and performance are studied and compared. A comparison between isolated rotors and complete vehicle simulations is presented. NASA’s quadrotor is one of NASA’s concept vehicles designed in support of aircraft development for vertical take-off and landing air taxi operations.