Cycloidal Rotor Airplane: The Cycloplane
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2024
- Cycloidal rotor propulsion is being used on new vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, but how about using a cyclorotor for forward flight instead of purely hovering? I strapped a few cyclorotors on a simple RC airplane design to put it to the test versus a regular propeller, and the results are explosive.
Patreon: / nicholasrehm
Jude’s channel: / judeschauer
My hovering cycloidal rotor drone: • Cycloidal Rotor Drone:...
Balancing an inverted pendulum with my racing drone: • Flying Inverted Pendulum
The cyclorotor isn’t really a new concept; it has been used for tugboat propulsion for quite some time. It works by pitching the blades around their rotation so that they each always have a positive angle of attack relative to their motion around the spinning axis. One potential advantage they offer while operating in air is that their ‘tip’ speed is much lower than a conventional propeller for the same thrust, so they can be much quieter. With the proper mechanical linkage and servos, their thrust vector can also be rotated almost instantly for increased maneuverability. Will cyclos ever replace regular propellers? Probably not. But that won’t stop me from continuing to explore them in future videos-so if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a like on this video and subscribing so you don’t miss more videos like this one.
00:00 Intro
00:29 How a Cyclorotor Makes Thrust
01:32 Designing a New Cyclorotor
02:35 Building the Cyclorotors
03:16 Thrust Stand Testing
05:40 Cycloplane Build and Flights
07:19 Cycloplane Explosion
08:06 Conclusions
#Cyclorotor #Cyclocopter #Drone - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Haha, I've often sniffed an airplane to diagnose the problem. Great job as always Nick! Impressive project to pull off.
Thanks James! Cycloidal rotor boat? I’ve got some .stls with your name on them
@@NicholasRehm Great idea! Feel free to send them over!
My Father sniffs the oil in his cars to see if it needs to be changed. He's a Stanford Civil Engineering grad, and had a 30+ year career in Aerospace, including the Lockheed L-1011. You're (IMHO) in good company using aromatic diagnostic techniques.
"That smells very warm" 🤣
collab pls
This is a super interesting idea, I really do like how good projects from the early 1900´s can have a better research with today technologies
Lemme know if there’s any other cool designs I should try
If the design was left 100 years ago, it means it sucks. Simply.
@@DashzRight Many designs are viable now due to advances in material science and miniaturization of components. Hypernormalizing this into “it probably sucks” isn’t a good way to get anywhere.
@@DashzRight and that's why we don't use AC or DC current anymore, right? Or radio signals?
@@evanbarnes9984 Yeah but we didn't "leave" those like was said either.
I love the style and pacing of this video. Solid designs and solid testing! Excited for more!
Very much appreciated Michael. This video took way longer than it should have lol
Because of the larger "rotor area/wing area" I feel like these could be more efficient, but because of the mechanical complexity will require more maintenance.
Genius in engineering, I’m very impressed!
4:03 You may see propeller thrust but I see your subscriber trend
This looks awesome! Congratulations, and well done!
Fascinating concept. Thanks for building it!
It's amazing to see a man like you trying to make a revolution! God bless you! I really hope you can make it!
it's always great to see someone doing research like this. Great work!
It's great to see your progress! It looks like you had some amazing sustained flights. Much better than my little glide. 😂 I never realized that the one airfoil acts like a wing during forward flight, but that makes sense now. That and probably the higher airflow for the bottom rotor (the one with lots of helpful virtual camber) gives something like a 36% decrease in power consumption at higher speeds. I'll hopefully get my third attempt at a cycloplane flying in the coming months; It'll be interesting to see if it has the same general flight characteristics as yours (hopefully excluding the exploding rotor).
Good luck on future projects, I can't wait to see the cool things that you come up with.
Subscribed to your channel! Wish you good luck!
"Please work."
*giggles. Immediately clicks subscribe*
Great job comparing their performance! Cycloidal rotor will need a lot of optimization to reach a propeller performance. So for me it looks interesting as a concept, but is far from be worth due its complexity and inherent multiple failure modes.
I definitely agree that it’ll take some more iterating and optimizing. Appreciate your comment!
that is the next level. fusion of plane, heli, and drone.
You do the stuff I imagine Samm Sheperd would do if he were still alive. I'm glad I found your channel.
Rest easy, Samm. This is such an amazing comment to receive, thank you.
You did a good job there, well done.
I like your jovial response to calamity and disaster Nicholas! And thanks for sharing this research.
I'll be checking out your link to Jude Schauer and coming back to see what else you have been doing. Subscribed!
I do not understand any of this but I admire your enthusiasm.
Looking forward to your upcoming videos. This is hyper cool stuff!
Thanks!
Great video! That 'unexpected result' has got to be one of the funniest ever!
Wider front wheels might have prevented that. But either way that first flight was successful even though the second one wasn't. Brilliant job
You efforts are so useful and rewarding.
Thanks very much, great to see you’re still working on the f-35
I saw this rotor design in a old documentary video about helicopter history! If I remembered correctly I think it was from 1930 or something
That method will increase the effect on a vertical wind power. Very interesting. Good work. Take care.
Thanks Goran!
Honestly, it could be something else than the blades themselves: it could be all of the stuff built around to control their angle of attack. Nice work anyway, that's a lovely dev, thank you for the video!
Surprisingly with the blades and linkages removed, it only draws something like 5% more power than an unloaded motor
Good job. That's amazing.
Very Nice. I don't have any practical knowledge of the cyclo rotor but I just learnt a lot from your video. Thank you very much.
Your builds are awesome, thanks for the comment
@@NicholasRehm wow! Thank you very much.
Usually one such rotor is divided into two. In order to arrange the blades in a checkerboard pattern. It is very difficult to make a blade that bends at the desired angle. It is difficult to make the blades herringbone. It is difficult to put the blades in a spiral..This is a challenging puzzle.
Admirable work-through of a funny idea!
I love your projects, thanks X3 for sharing it, I kind of impersonate the young experience ; ) and knowledgeable science, I enjoyed it thoroughly
You genius SOB ! Awsome!
dude, quite impressive work! thanks for sharing... u r a freaking inventor! great stuff, keep it up! Cheers!
FASCINATING
Great video! this is an interesting project. I'm now wondering if these rotors could be built in/incorporated into a wing where the rotors "tuck in"/"rotate in" to the wing when/where they would be perpendicular to the direction of travel/where they are creating drag and not lift. I'll add this to the endless list of projects I want to get to.
I Love This! I'm almost done with mine, I can't wait to show y'all!
Can't wait!!
A flatter/flat wing with ailerons will give you much better roll control, then you can use rudder for ground steering (without the roll) and banknyank for flight control.
This seems very similar to the Voith Schneider Propeller. These are used on tug boats and have the amazing ability to maneuver the tug in any direction.
I may be premature and giving a suggestion I flew RC helicopters back in the 70s we didn’t have gyros back then but we did have coged belts or timing belt, I think it will help you greatly. Keep up the good work my friend you have amazing ideas
You rock,guy!!
Thanks very innovative and learn a lot from you!
hi nicholas, i wrote to jude also, that this drive (like the voith-schneider prop on ships) gives different performance with number of blades, length of blades, length to breadth ratio of the blades. the voith-schneider played a lot in water. i imagine in air have other numbers
7:21 the BUILD UP. the SILENCE. I’m dead hahaha awesome work
This is amazing!!!
Thanks Iggy
Very cool video!👍
Thanks!!
Interesting project, may take years if not decades to perfect. 👍
I found you again… The cyclo plane is really cool but I just watched your drone cyclo copter and I said do not give up you are not allowed… Well seriously this type of propulsion is the most beautiful of all you must continue. Like a majestic paddleboat in the South Mississippi River this is the most beautiful concept… I will not allow you to give up… Go go go yea… The coolest ever
cool idea ..fun stuff
Thanks!
awesome!
It'd make a decent vtol candidate, right? Because it has nearly infinitely variable thrust angles from straight up to straight forward, without having to pivot motors at all.
Also, great work and thanks for sharing. Sorry it detonated, but... Science!
Hahaha, thanks. Yea I’m very interested in the control authority it offers for a higher speed vtol through transition. Baby steps until we get there!
love the concept! but if I could ask for something: it would be really interesting to compare different numbers of blades on these, specifically three and six would be something i'd wish to see!
Reminds of that old black and white vintage video of the cycloroter that flew apart a everyone running away!
By not reading other comments, intriguing but rule of engineering thumb more moving parts creates higher risk of failure, this is why the basic fan, propeller is still used today in planes and ships.
2nd attempt to take of is gorgeous...
This is Steampunk as hell and I'm here for it
Good research and experiment!+
I would consider experimenting with different shaped blades, e.g. with more curvature. Maybe inflatable would be good for easy changes making testing a lot faster.
7:45 lol at the frozen reaction during the rain of parts
Love the paddle steamer plane :D
Keep on going. Investmets are waiting for you
This concept works very well under a tugboat in the Voith-Schneider cycloidal drive. That’s because the weight and strength of the components is not a restrictive factor. Your project is wonderfully fascinating, but will always be fragile, I fear. 🤜🤛
2:16 that is what good experimenting will do. Love it, keep at it !
3:40 that’s correct. Don’t base your work on comparisons. You will find different values of performance to be sure, as you are finding out.
6:50 try serpentine belts , toothed belts will rip apart if they jump the teeth, or over load the shafting, slipping a bit will let you bring it home at least .😊
"I need to take a break from Cyclorotors..." ...since its bad to end up like a homicidal maniac... "...but I learned alot..!" ...about my patience limits 😆
Good show, that spray of parts was truly epic... reminds me when I gave up on RC airplanes.
I had many thoughts about the same scheme, but with the rotors placed instead of tail elevator & stabilizer. Some kind of combined pusher & active thrust vectoring.
Impressive
Something new and weird is always good, even if it ends up in bits 😄
Sounds a lot more peaceful when it flies
@Nicholas Rehm Try using a notched belt so tension / slippage isn't so much of an issue. Besides the tension could torque the frame causing it to twist as more thrust is being applied.
looks very smouthe and stabel
Good idea.
Very good engineering.
Thanks Michael!
When it spins. The flaps, even though position slim, causes wind vortex friction. Perhaps a quarter circle frame beam, could shield the return rotation of the fins from the drag of open exposed atmosphere. This only requires a rotate 1/4th circle frame.
this mechanism is also used in some very unique tug boats as well. Could make a boat vs. a plane. :-)
Excellent idea
Impressive project. What a sad ending
The bird screaming when the plane broke was perfect lol 🐦
Nice job Nick! Couldn't have done it witout Winklemans class...
All thanks to the zener diode
So, traditional props have a speed limit, if you don't want the tips to produce a continuous sonic boom. With the cyclorotor, you could spin it up to mach 0.9, and then increase the length if more thrust is desired. That would be interesting to see.
Good luck ✌✌
Reinventing the propeller sounds as good as an idea as reinventing the wheel imo.
Cheers!! Bro
This was educational, fun and created with care. Definitely worth a sub! So count me in!
You are too kind, very happy you enjoyed
The prop makes 3x more noise -
but gives 3x more thrust ^^
You're the much less pedantic Tom Stanton with a great repository of interesting projects! I'm sure you'll take off, if you can excuse that pun lol. When you come back to cyclo rotors again I'd really like to see a discussion on tip vortices in the vanes, it's something that a lot of people don't talk about and it seems a little bit harder to solve than the traditional tapered and twisted propeller. I have seen some cyclo rotors with disks bonded the frame but I'm wondering if that hurts the performance of the lower blade significantly.
Hey hey we love Tom around here
I think the disks would improve tip effects but hurt inflow, so not sure if it would be a net positive or not. Only one way to find out
@@NicholasRehm didn't mean to shade tom too much! I think he aims for a younger audience but I've been subscribed to him ever since he did the paramotor :P
I particularly like the part where you make a small confetti cannon in the parking lot. Literally LOL'd
Great job on the project. In the slow motion shot it appears the right rotor exploded before the plane rolled to the left and caused the left rotor to hit the ground. Can you determine if it was a structural failure or did it hit something? I'm looking forward to your next adventure!
Hmmm very good catch. The right rotor did suffer a little mishap off camera that needed repairs. Poor left rotor was collateral damage it seems
Ojalá que sí veamos este diseño en un futuro cercano
I spit my coffee out at the satisfaction attained by pressing in bearings. Is that my dirty mind showing or did I really get the joke that was meant?
I just like the tight tolerances. You need Jesus lol
Some of the thrust readings might be affected by it being a static test. Some chance it could be a bit more efficient on the actual aircraft if it's in moving air.
Other than that, perhaps figuring out how to make some "bird cage" type thing to go over it. That's a lot of work to have break rather quickly, so if the weight penalty isn't too steep that could make some mistakes less expensive regarding the time put into it. (Shows one advantage of props, if those break - slapping on new ones can be done in under a minute.)
This is great Nicholas, too bad you have to put it down for the moment but I like how you used the weight of the aircraft in this design to counter the moment around the cyclorotors to save on battery usage but I can see needing a control fan at the rear for the 1:1 Personal VTOL designs which is my personal bag if you know what I mean. Too bad Im not a technician like you but just a business product designer that understands a little engineering, I have a wheeled/seated inverted pendulum Id like to do too.
Science!!! Nicely done. I wonder how much efficiency is lost through pitching the blades through a full cycle/rotation? Have you experimented with moving the pivot point?
Releasing the design on an open collaboration platform could actually gain you more subscribers.
at 3:14 the cyclorotor sounded almost identical to a Huey, pretty freaking awesome lol
Yea, it has a very thumpy, low frequency profile that's really unique for something so small
Awesome Nick! Where did you get your info to make one? How do you keep them pitching correctly?
It was noted that at 7:28 in the video "catastrophic unscheduled disassembly", otherwise known as "re-kitting" was experienced. Further testing is indicated.
Nice Vid, I subbed
You rock
you could make an amazing oscillating fan with this
Beautiful explosion there :p
Would adding or subtracting blades on the rotors help? Adding more blades to be like a turbine engine or blower motor fan in an automobile or taking away and going to three to save on weight?
The reduced noise feature alone will buy it's way on.
What about some protective skids on the outside of the cylinders? To prevent that kind of crash again :p Cool stuff
"Too Bendy" ?? Never heard that engineering term ! :)
Lol anything goes when you’re on a time crunch