Numerical Investigation on Thrust Generation of a Rotating Divergent Duct at Low Reynolds Number

In this paper, rotating divergent duct (RDD) was proposed as a bladeless thruster and numerical simulations were performed to investigate the thrust generation mechanism when subject to high rotating speed and low Reynolds number. Both the flow field and performance of RDD model were calculated when immersed in glycerin, it is shown that the static pressure of the inner surface is higher than that of the outer one and the velocity around the wall surfaces have backward component due to the viscous force and centrifugal effect of the vortex generated. Since the pressure difference is acted on the wall surfaces which are   inclined, a small thrust force is then produced.