ESS-38-75

Aircraft propellers

Arnaud Grandfils
Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, United Kingdom, a.a.grandfils@cranfield.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper is an introduction to aircraft propellers which gives an overview of how these devices work, are designed and
used. Their main evolutions over the past century have also been investigated to give a better understanding of these compo-
nents.
Section two is a description of the geometry and terminology used for propellers. This mandatory step is made to supply
readers with a minimum knowledge of blade design. The following paragraph deals with pitch angle and investigates fixed-
pitch and constant speed propellers. Then, the emphasis has been put on aerodynamic requirements and noise issues which
remain major challenges for manufacturers. Propellers mechanical design has been investigated too by focusing on forces,
moments and vibrations. A few sights have also been made to give some notions on blades material selection and new trends
in propellers engineering. Finally, operational procedures have been discussed focusing on synchronization problems for
multi-engines propelled aircrafts and protection systems against environmental stresses.

Keywords: propeller; blade; pitch; solidity

Nomenclature ever people said, this device remains up to date. The cur-
rent development of A400M turboprop aircraft is one of the
α Angle of attack best examples of those new high performance propellers
 Pitch angle which can be operated till fly speeds of M0.79. More than
η Propelling efficiency that, with researches currently undertaken on propfan
 Rotational speed designs, propellers seem to face a bright future. If this
B Number of blades device is broadly used with piston and turboprop engines,
L Chord length this is due to its high efficiency for flight speed under
R Blade radius M0.55. Indeed, above this limit, propelling efficiency drops
S Solidity due to air compressibility issues when blade tip approaches
d Reference element diameter sound speed. Avoiding this high velocity aerodynamic
m Blade element mass trouble, this large efficiency at low speed means that the
p Geometric pitch resulting specific fuel consumption (SFC) of propelled
ANR Active noise reduction system aircrafts is smallest than turbofan and turbojet ones under
CF Centrifugal force the same conditions. Thus, propellers achieve less expen-
SFC Specific fuel consumption sive operating flight at low speed than other propulsion
EPNL Effective perceived noise level systems. Finally, the purpose of propellers is only to con-
vert the engine power into thrust that allows the aircraft to
1. Introduction fly in the best efficient way. This aim is carried out by
accelerating a mass of air rearward while an equal but
Propeller is a key component of aircraft propulsion opposite reaction propels the aircraft forward. In this way,
systems. The development of aviation was closely linked to propeller blades just act like rotating wings.
this element which may seem simple at first sight. In fact, The following lines are made to give you a clear under-
this is an extremely technical component, the complexity of standing of how propellers are designed, manufactured and
which is a matter aerodynamics and mechanical require- operated. This goal can only be achieved with a minimum
ments. In 1903, Wright brothers managed the first fly of the knowledge of propeller geometry which is the purpose of
history, and already used propellers to take-off. Nowadays, the next paragraph.
even if most commercial aircrafts use turbofan engines, a
large amount of planes still fly with propellers, particularly 2. Propellers Geometry
short haul commercial narrow-bodies and general aviation
vehicles. Of course, a lot of technical improvements have A propeller is made of several blades (usually two to
been made from the Wright brother’s propellers, and what- five) which are assembled together on a hub, itself mounted

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on the engine shaft. Each blade is an airfoil that produces

lift and drag forces. The lines that link the leading edge
(front edge) of the blade to the trailing edge are named
chord. The mean chord is the span. Airfoils are also defined
by their width, camber (equidistant line form the upper and
lower blade surfaces that joins the leading and trailing
edges) and pitch . This last angle is very important due to
its effect on blade efficiency which will be discussed later
on.
Figure 3: Blade external design - adapted form [1]

2.1. Twisting

A quick look at propellers shows that blades are twist-

ed. This design is made to maintain a selected efficient
ratio between blades thrust and torque, and to ensure the
propeller mechanical integrity during rotation. Indeed, the
equivalent reaction along the blade, like speed, is increased
with it radius. This force is then evened out from root to tip
by reduction of the blade angle while the geometric pitch
Figure 1: Blade section – adapted from [1] remains constant. The standard reference for blade angle is,
for a particular propeller, to give the angle measured at
Usually, blade profile definition is made using different 75% of the blade length from the root.
data libraries named NACA, Göttingen or Clarck. Propeller
engineering companies however develop their own profiles
which perform with their specification requirements.
Blades also have a tip and a root. The butt is the part where
pitch-change mechanisms are attached if the propeller is
provided with this device.
The blade angle, also named pitch or  is the angle be-
tween the plane of rotation and the blade chord. The geo-
metric pitch is the distance that the propeller would theoret-
ically travel in one rotation while in reality this distance
depends of the aircraft forward speed and is called effective
pitch. The formula of the geometric pitch is given below:
Figure 4: Geometric pitch angle distribution along
p = π d tan β blade radius - adapted form [3]

With p is the geometric pitch, d the diameter of the ref- 2.2. Propulsive efficiency
erence element and  the blade angle at this reference
element. As explained in the introduction, the main advantage of
The helix angle is the angle between the plane of rota- the propeller is its good propelling efficiency under M
tion and the propeller actual path or relative airflow. The 0.55. This efficiency reflects the amount of energy convert-
angle of attack α is the angle between the chord line and ed in useful fly power relatively to the energy provided by
the actual blade path. the engine and can be expressed by the following formula.

𝑇ℎ𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 2
𝜂= =
𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 1 + 𝑉𝑠
𝑉0

With Vs the air speed outward the propeller and V 0 the

air inward the propeller. Figure 5 shows a comparison of
propelling efficiencies between different engine configura-
tions for several Mach numbers.

2.3. Solidity

The solidity factor is the ratio of the blade area to disc

area. It is expressed by the following formula:

1
𝐵 𝑟 𝑟
𝑆= ∫ 𝐿( )𝑑( )
𝜋𝑅2 𝑟 𝑅 𝑅
𝑅

Figure 2: Propeller angles [2]

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Where B is the number of blades, r/R the blade radius The main drawback of fixed pitch propellers is that the
ratio and L the chord length. thrust extracted by the propeller decreases when the aircraft
A high solidity factor is required to obtain a good pro- speed increases for a constant engine rotational speed. This
pulsive efficiency at high altitude. Turboprops commercial thrust reduction is due to the link within the velocity trian-
aircrafts are therefore sensitive to this parameter due to gle between the blade angle of attack and the aircraft speed.
their operational height. There are two ways of increasing This relationship tends to drop propelling efficiencies close
propeller solidity: to add more blades or to increase their to zero at high speed. A similar problem occurs at low
chord. But, this last solution has to be used carefully be- speed, during take-off for example, where a large amount
cause a too large chord will reduce propeller efficiency by of useful work is needed to accelerate. The propelling
increasing aerodynamic drag losses and injure its mechani- efficiency is low just like the aircraft speed which means
cal integrity. Increasing the number of blades after five or that the work extracted from the propeller is small. There-
six will also reduce propeller efficiency. Since 1930, the fore, fixed pitch propellers are only efficient at an optimum
trend for short haul narrow body aircrafts is to increase angle of attack which is chosen during blade design by the
propellers solidity. manufacturer, in accordance to performance requirements.

3.2. Two pitch propeller

Two pitch propellers are designed to enhance propelling

efficiency for two crucial flight regimes. The first one is
take-off when a fine pitch must be selected because the
airplane has a small velocity; the second one is cruise
where the objective is to reduce fuel consumption as low as
possible with a coarse pitch selected.
The main advantage of this system is its relatively easy
conception and cost comparing with constant speed propel-
lers. The first two pitch propellers were mounted on a RE-8
airplane by RAF in 1916. This propeller was 23kg weighti-
er than a fixed pitch propeller.

3.3. Constant speed propeller

The objective of a constant speed propeller is to always

Figure 5: Propulsive efficiency of aircraft engines –adapted let the propeller work within its most efficient conditions.
form [4] With this system, pilots set a constant propeller rotational
speed according to its flying regime (take-off, cruise or
landing) and only increase or decrease thrust by selecting
2.4. Activity and camber coefficient the engine throttle. Mechanical and/or electronic systems
control the propeller pitch to fit the needed thrust at the
selected rotational speed. The technical solutions for those
Other coefficients must be given to define the blade de-
controls systems are diverse. Usually, the driving system is
sign layout even if they just give a sketch of blade profile
hydraulic and mechanic or electronic while the power
and behavior. The activity factor tells us if the largest
system is hydraulic or inertial. Some examples of those
chords are at the root (low number) or at the tip of the
pitch control systems are given in figures 7 and 8.
blade. The camber coefficient tells us whether the blade
The first constant speed propeller was developed in
profiles are the more curved at the root (low coefficient) or
1936 by the Hamilton firm.
at the tip of the blade. Like solidity, those two factors have
an integral definition which can be found in reference [5].

3. Pitch calibration

The first half of 20th century is for sure the one of huge
improvements in propeller pitch areas due to the interwar
researches undertaken to enhance propeller performances.
Increases of flying altitudes and speeds with power take-off
requirements have lead engineers to find a trade-off to
maintain a high propulsive efficiency.

3.1. Fixed pitch propeller

During the premises of aviation and up to the beginning

of world war one, all aircraft propellers were fixed pitch Figure 6: Propelling efficiency following pitch calibration
ones. Those kinds of propellers are still nowadays the more and aircraft speed - adapted form [2]
standards in aeronautics and particularly for general avia-
tion market because they are the less complex and expen-
sive.

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Figure 7: Electromechanical and hydraulic pitch change

device - adapted form [5]

Figure 9: Aerodynamic loads repartition on blade length -

adapted form [5]

4.3. Twisting moments

The leading and trailing edge of the blades create a

twisting moment called centrifugal twisting moment
around the pitch change axis when the propeller rotates.
This moment is partially offset by the aerodynamic twisting
moment during normal fly conditions. This last moment is
produced by the distance between the pitch change axis and
the blade gravity center.
Figure 8: Mechanical pitch change device (gearwheels) -
adapted form [5] 4.4. Propeller integration

4. Aerodynamic forces and moments The performances of a propeller are given when it is not
mounted on any engine or aircraft. However, some aerody-
As underlined in the introduction, blades only act like namic interactions are possible with airplane components
rotating wings. They also produce the same aerodynamic (wings, fuselage, spinner...) and can modify propeller
forces. Because of the different shape that the upper and efficiency up to 10%. A huge care must therefore be taken
lower blade surfaces have, a differential pressure potential when designing a propeller to avoid such interactions.
is created on both surfaces. The pressure of the upper blade Propellers rotation also creates forces and moments on
surface decreases while it increases on the lower blade the aircrafts that single engine aircraft pilots must be aware
surface. This phenomenon tends to create a reaction that of. The first one is the torque reaction which pushes the
can be divided into two forces called lift and drag for a aircraft to turn about the longitudinal axis on the opposite
wing or thrust and torque for a propeller. direction of propeller rotation. This phenomenon is mostly
visible during quick torque increase like take-off but can be
4.1. Propeller thrust avoided by contra-rotating propeller implementation.
World War II Spitfire pilots were really careful with it,
This force is perpendicular to the aircraft plane of rota- because numbers crashed during take-off. Other reactions
tion and its magnitude varies along the blade. At the root, are gyroscopic effect, occurring when aircraft pitches or
where the rotational velocity is low and at the tip where the yaws and spiral slipstream effect which gives a yawing
pressure is equalized, this force equals to zero. moment to the aircraft due to the rotating flow of air pro-
duced by the propeller that surrounds the fuselage.
4.2. Propeller torque
4.5. Performance modeling methods
The propeller torque is due to the rotation of the blade
and creates drag. The torque profile along the blade is the There are lots of different methods to model the aerody-
same as thrust as illustrated in figure 9. Further discussion namics of a propeller. The choice of those methods only
concerning torque will be given in paragraph 6. depends of the result required. Momentum theories and
blade element theories are the simplest ones and are used at
the beginning of a design project to provide quick results.
When more accurate data are needed, at a more advanced

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time of the project, Euler or Navier Stockes methods are propeller vibrations. The second one is to use active noise
used because they take into account, air compressibility reduction systems. The objective there is to produce the
and viscosity further local and non-stationaries phenome- same noise as the one measured into the cabin and to pro-
non. The drawback of those last methods is however their duce a noise at the same frequency but with an opposed
too long modeling time and the huge computing resources phase. Then the passenger does not hear the propeller noise
needed. which is however actually there. This process of active
noise reduction systems (ANR) is now broadly developed
5. Noise for general aviation pilots headsets.

Noise is one of the main issues faced by propellers. In- 5.3. Synchronising and synchrophasing
deed nowadays, regional propelled commercial aircrafts
produce more disturbance than turbofan. With current For multi-engines propellers aircrafts, it is possible to
pressure exercised on air carriers, noise improvement has reduce noise levels and vibrations significantly by equaliz-
become a major objective of research over the past few ing the rotational speeds of the engines. This synchroniza-
years. tion process is a servitude system which works using a
master engine that gives, via a control unit, the rotational
5.1. Propellers noise emission speed to adopt to the other engines.
A significant reduction of propellers noise level can also
Aircraft noise is produced by a temporal variation of a be achieved ensuring that propeller tips are separated by an
fluid pressure and is often expressed in a specific aeronau- optimum angle which prevents noise interactions. This
tic unit, the EPNL scale, effective perceived noise level in process is called synchrophasing.
EPNdB. This specific noise scale is specially made for
aero-acoustics and is used to compare aircraft noise around 6. Mechanical design
airports. Usually, engineers use spectral representation to
plot the frequencies generated by a propeller and only take A number of different loads apply on a propeller and
into account the first eight frequencies because they are the their knowledge is important to understand the mechanical
most important sources of noise. Within those frequencies, requirements of this device.
three sounds can be distinguished: the layer sound which is
produced by the displacement of air caused by the propel- 6.1. Centrifugal force
ler, the bipolar noise, due to the pressure repartition around
the blades and the quadripolar noise due to the compressi- The first and most famous force applied on the blade is
bility of air around at high speed. Propeller noise is mainly the centrifugal stress force that acts outward of the rotating
driven by the blade tip speed, number of blades, aircraft blade. This force can be calculated by the following formu-
speed, the propelling efficiency and the blade geometry. la:
Even if huge progress have been made in this area during 𝐶𝐹 = 𝑚𝜔²𝑟
the past few years, noise is still not well understood by the
research community. With m the element mass of the blade,  the rotational
It is also important to underline that noise is not only a speed in radians per seconds and r the section radius.
problem for people in the vicinity of airfields but it is an
issue in the cabin too, because of both passenger conven- 6.2. Bending and sharp stresses
ience and frame vibrations.
Bending and sharp stresses are more difficult to calcu-
late because of their close links to aerodynamics. Para-
graphs 2.1 and 4.1 to 4.3 deal with loads behind those
stresses. For a first approximation, the profile which is at
75% of the blade radius length must be considered because
it is the more efficient one. For a more precise calculation,
it is necessary to integrate the lift and drag local forces on
the whole blade length.

Figure 10: Noise produced by a four blades propeller at

1200rpm - adapted form [5]

5.2. Cabin noise reduction systems

There are mainly two ways to fight against noise in an

aircraft cabin. The first one is to use passive systems. For
example, with an oscillator in the airframe which damps Figure 11: Propeller loads - adapted form [5]

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6.3. Fatigue fatigue, forcing manufacturers to give a life potential to

their blades to avoid breakage during fly while wood mate-
Propeller fatigue is mainly due to non-stationary loads rials do not face this problem because of the laminated way
applied on its structure that can be divided in two domains. they are manufactured.
The high cycle fatigue (HCF) is due to structural excita-
tions at blade natural frequency and bending moments at
take-off for example. The low cycle fatigue (LCF) corre-
sponds to loads applied accidentally when pilots exit the
propeller fly domain. Goodman diagrams are used to study
the propeller fatigue resistance.

6.4. Vibrations and fluctuations

In addition to structural fatigue, vibrations can produce

global cyclic movements to the engine-propeller unit.
Those movements are of two types: whirl, the propeller
center describes a circle around the rotation shaft and
pumping, the propulsion group is driven by forward and
backward translations on the shaft axis.
As all rotating components, propellers have also to be
balanced when they are mounted on an engine shaft to
reduce as much as possible structural vibrations.

7. Materials

Propeller material selection is an important topic be-

cause its choice influences directly blade design, mechani-
cal behavior and integrity during operation. Also, propel- Figure 12: Wood propeller [6]
lers material requirements are high fatigue and tensile
strengths with the lightest component available. Resistance
to corrosion and abrasion is also needed. Each kind of
blade materials has its own advantages and drawbacks for a
particular applications and propellers are often designed
with a safety coefficient of four.

7.1. Wood

At the beginning of aviation, propellers were made of

wood. Today, this material is still used for fixed pitched
single piston engine aircrafts. Woods selected are mostly
extracted of oak, birch and walnut trees.
The main advantage of wood is it good strength to
weight ratio. Unfortunately, this material is not resistant to
abrasion. Also, it is more difficult to manufacture wood
propellers than steel ones on a large production plant. That
is why wood materials are nowadays only devoted to gen-
eral aviation market: their manufacturing process is a
handmade work and new materials like composites were
developed over the past decades for commercial aircrafts
purpose.
This process has not evolved since the early 1900s. Pro-
pellers are carried out by glued laminations shaped to meet
the needed outlines by hand or with a milling machine,
prior to be smoothly sanded. In addition, blades resistance
is today enhanced by carbon fiber coating before being
painted. A metal strip can also be attached to the tip blades
leading edges to prevent abrasion as it was already done a Figure 13: Steel propeller [6]
century ago.
7.2.1. Aluminum alloys
7.2. Metal alloys
At the beginning, metallic blades were forged with light
The end of the First World War has seen a change in aluminum alloys like duralumin. The increase of engine
propellers material choice driven by the advent of alumi- power and propeller diameter pushed, at that time, engi-
num and steel alloys which are more suitable for high neers to use hollow blades.
power engines. The main issue of metal materials remains

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Aluminum is easy to manufacture and distorts. Its dis-

advantage however is its low fatigue to strength and weight
ratio accompanied with a high trend to erosion under ex-
treme operating conditions which force periodic inspec-
tions.

7.2.2. Steel alloys

When aluminum maximum mechanical performances

were reached, high strength alloys like CMV (chrome
nickel molybdenum) alloys were developed.
Manufacturing starts with blade forging, after that, ma-
chining is made to reach the needed curvatures prior to
polish the component.

7.3. Composites

First blades designed in composites materials were de-

veloped during the 1970s. Lighter, they produce less vibra-
tions and noise than other materials. There are made of
non-structural foam surrounded by carbon fiber or glass
fiber.
The main advantages of using composite are that it is
lighter than other materials, engineers have the opportunity
to improve the propeller behavior in function of the me-
chanical strain distribution of the propeller and that compo-
sites are corrosion free. Also, composites allow to design
Figure 15: Composite blades manufacturing process ex-
propeller shapes that cannot be manufactured with steels
ample - adapted form [5]
(like high camber coefficient blades) and which are easier
to repair. Industrialization process is also efficient because
8. Operational procedures
blades are manufactured with matrixes easily replicable.
Nevertheless, the external structure of composite blades
8.1. Synchronizing system
is brittle and small impacts can damage it seriously.
Synchronizing and synchrophasing systems have al-
ready been covered in paragraph 4.3.

8.2. Protection systems

Propellers have to face a large amount of environmental

assaults during operation that can reduce their performanc-
es and undermine their integrity. The following chapter
only deals with ice, lightning and abrasion which are the
main stresses. However, they are not the only ones and
propellers have also to be protected against corrosion,
moisture and impacts.

8.2.1. Ice

Ice is one of the major issues faced by turboprop air-

crafts because they usually fly under 20 000ft where at-
mospheric humidity level is the highest. This really jeop-
ardous phenomenon tends to reduce profiles aerodynamics
performances by accumulation of ice on blades. Usually,
during icing fly conditions, ice thickness increases up to be
teared off by its centrifugal force. Nonetheless, to prevent
this dangerous situation that may lead to blade stalling and
to permit aircrafts to be certified for icing conditions, an
anti-ice system is integrated within the blade. It is often
Figure 14: A400M composite propeller [7] made of resistors that heat the ice in less than a minute
time.

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9. Conclusion

This paper has given an overview of how propellers

work, are design and manufactured. As underlined here, the
number of phenomenon taken into account for propeller
design purpose is very high and carrying out this device is
made by the development of optimum solutions between
inconsistent issues.
We have seen that propellers are mainly used for low
Mach number aircrafts because of their high propulsive
efficiency in this fly domain. Also, blade design is a com-
plex task which involves the research of best aerodynamic
performance within the material mechanical integrity.
Several pitch calibration methods are available to achieve
this high propulsive efficiency even if there is a competi-
tion between propeller cost, mechanical complexity and
maintenance. Noise remains one of the major challenges
Figure 16: Spinner icing [6]
for propeller development while materials continue to
evolve and protections systems are more than required.
8.2.2. Lightning
Also, research has still a great role to play in this domain.
Materials advances, noise understanding and computational
Because of their shape, propellers are some of the com-
fluid dynamics improvements are some keys to success in
ponents the most often struck by lightning. Manufacturers
propeller efficiency quest and market development.
have to ensure that lightning will not endanger blades and
For commercial aviation, it is possible that within a few
that electrical loads will be transferred to the aircraft fuse-
years, the gap between turbofan and turboprop aircrafts
lage, especially for composites blades where a specific
will shrinks when manufacturers will develop a hybrid
device may be required.
solution close to propfan designs. In the meantime, propel-
lers will remain almost similar as the ones manufactured
8.2.3. Erosion
nowadays in general aviation market because they already
provide good performances and that the market is not
Blade wearing is mostly produced by erosion or abra-
developed enough to provide manufacturers with substan-
sion during which gravels, sand and rain damage propeller
tial financial interests.
leading edge. In this area, an anti-erosion coating is added
at the root of the blade while at the tip a metal strip is
Acknowledgments
attached. The others surfaces of the blade are protected
with an anti-wearing painting.
The author would like to give his grateful thanks to the
Rethélois and Vouzinois air club for their propeller lend.

References

[1] Oxford aviation training (2001), JAA ATPL theoretical

knowledge manual: powerplant, First edition, Jeppesen pub-
lications.
[2] Oxford aviation training (2001), JAA ATPL theoretical
knowledge manual: principles of flight, Second edition,
Jeppesen publications.
[3] US department of transportation (2008), Pilot’s Handbook
of Aeronautical Knowledge, Federal aviation administration.
[4] Pilidis P., Palmer J. R., (2012), Gas turbine theory and
performance course notes, Cranfield University press, Cran-
field.
[5] Philippe, J-L (2010), “Hélices aériennes” (Aircraft propel-
lers), Techniques de l’ingénieur (in French)
Figure 17: Blade protection systems - adapted form [5] [6] Grandfils, A. (2009), Personal photographs
[7] A400M propeller (2012), www.plane-mad.com