Towards A Holistic Predesign Approach Using Rotor Cant Of Evtol Aircraft

Abstract

Pre-design analysis of a Lift+Cruise eVTOL configuration was performed using cant as a primary design pa-rameter in order to illustrate the need for a comprehensive approach during the conceptual design phase. Rotor rotation direction was also considered from design requirement and controllability perspectives and was found to follow the choice of cant angle direction. Rotor cant was shown to have an impact on performance, controllability, stability, safety, failure tolerance, and motor design requirements. Introducing cant was shown to cause minor penalties to hover power requirements resulting from changed orientation of thrust vectors and an increase in the design gross weight in exchange for resilience to two-engine-inoperative failures and sig-nificantly improved yaw control derivatives at low speeds, the addition of a purely translational lateral control axis, the ability to reduce the negative impact of blade breaks, and the potential to stabilize rigid-body modes that are unstable for an uncanted system.