Abstract
<jats:p>The thrust characteristics of slotted propellers of an unmanned aerial vehicle are the subject of the study. The study object is a slotted propeller of an unmanned aerial vehicle. This study aims to increase the thrust of the propeller of an unmanned aerial vehicle by using special slots on the blade surface. The following tasks were solved to achieve the stated goals: development of propeller models with special slots; numerical simulation of the flow past propellers with special slots in the rotation frequency range from 3990 to 6705 rpm in the ground operating mode; analysis of the thrust characteristics of the studied propellers in a given rotation frequency range in the ground operating mode. The study was conducted for propellers with special slots, the width of which was 2 mm and the blade length was 30%.8 models of slotted propellers were developed. A numerical experiment was used to calculate the thrust of the studied propellers. Results: The thrust generation is affected by the presence of a slot on the propeller blade. Notably, not only the presence of a gap but also its location has an effect. In the presence of a gap on the propeller blades in the middle part of the blade, an effect of improving the thrust efficiency is observed for all location options, but not in the entire range of considered propeller rotation frequencies. The results of the conducted study of the thrust efficiency of air slot propellers of unmanned aerial vehicles showed that such a propeller can generate a thrust force up to 21% higher than the basic propeller without gaps with rationally selected gap parameters. A further direction of this study is the analysis of the normal characteristics of a propeller with slots. Scientific novelty and practical significance of the work: the thrust characteristics of air slot propellers for unmanned aerial vehicles were studied for the first time. The obtained results can be used to develop promising propellers with increased thrust efficiency.</jats:p>