Investigating Ground And Obstacle Effects On The Aerodynamics Of Uam Aircraft In Full Configuration

Abstract

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) has emerged as a solution to mitigate urban traffic congestion, and it is expected to operate congested environment with various obstacles, such as vertiports and surrounding buildings. However, these environments can produce unsteady aerodynamic interferce phenomea, including ground and obstacle effects, which may increase the risk of accidents. In this study, the obstacle effects on the aerodynamic performance and wake structure of a side-by-side UAM aircraft in full configuration are investigated using the vortex-based rotorcraft analysis code VALOR (Vortex-based Aerodynamic simuLation cOde for Rotorcraft). The simulation results indicate that the presence of obstacles causes the distortion of wake structure, which directly influences azimuthal variaion in the aerodynamic loads acting on the rotor blade. As the UAM aircraft approaches the obstacle, the induced velocity decreases, which results in increased thrust compared to the out-of-ground-effect condition. Based on the parametric study, the obstacle effect becomes most dominant when the aircraft is near or above the obstacle. The findings in this study help to establish safe operating guidelines for take-off and landing of UAM aircraft.