In order to measure the lift force of the wing, load cells were mounted between the bottom of the wing and car top mount. 4 propeller sizes were tested at 3 different current draws and each test was conducted at 30km/h or take-off speed. The load cell data was extracted using a python algorithm and live plotted using MATLAB. Further processing of the data was done through excel. The lift force of the 6" prop at 20% PWM plotted over 3 tests is shown on the right.
The data lift force of each of the propellers was plotted as a function of the current draw and can be seen on the right. Each propellers graph can be seen in our final report.
Results
The preliminary test results showed that the effects of distributed propulsion on lift increase is consistently seen at higher motor speeds which was to be expected. Additionally, the larger blades were considerably more useful than the smaller blade sizes. This may be in part due to the relative proportions of leading edge to blade swept area. In order to make further conclusions about this propulsion method further testing would need to occur.