I have designed a propeller and would like to test static trust and tweak the design before I make 3D prints. An aerospace engineering friend of mine told me that blender has some simulation tools that could be of use but I can’t seem to find any tutorials on how to do this online. Is it even possible?? If I can’t do this with blender, are there other programs that would work?
It would be possible I guess… but not advisable… as accuracy would be WAY off… its ok for making pretty drawings of smoke. but for physical simulation of real life phenomena… I wouldn’t waste your time…
as You can see, the simulation looks OK, but the accuracy just isn’t there… and this is just a “run of the mill” wind tunnel test, not really suitable for complicated things like propeller thrust and air resistance.
In fact I would go as far to say that 3d animation software isn’t the right place to look for things like aerodynamics testing, as the solve is just plain wrong, and therefore the results cannot be depended on.
Problems arise from blenders lack of atmosphere, in effect, blender simulates in a vacuum, and damping is usually added to simulate air resistance. And without realistic air pressure being simulated, effects such as vortexing will be impossible to simulate correctly from physical object behaviours