Importing Blade Element Models

Introduction

Blade element momentum (BEM) models may be imported to OpenVSP as Prop components in which each of the BEM stations are set as Prop blade control points. Because the Prop component is perhaps the most complex geometry in OpenVSP, it can take quite a while to update models with excessive numbers of control points when in Blades mode. This tends to happen when imported BEM models can have 20+ stations. A way to alleviate this is to switch the Prop to Disk mode, which doesn’t require a visual update to loft the blade with each parameter change. Users may also wish to convert the blade control curves to Approximate Cubic Bezier to reduce the number of points. This can be quickly accomplished for all blade curves by clicking “Approximate All” under the Blade tab.

For more information about working with Prop components, refer to the Propellers subject and topics.