Exploring Moment of Inertia & Angular Acceleration for Drone Propellers

[mxchapz]

Hi,

I am building a drone for a school project and I am also looking into how it flies. Recently I have been looking into angular momentum, torque, moment of inertia and angular acceleration. However I am struggling to understand moment of inertia and angular acceleration. If possible please could you explain the two and how they would relate to the propellers of a quadcopter.

Thanks

 

[BvU]

https://www.ck12.org/physics/moment-of-inertia/lesson/Moment-of-Inertia-PPC/

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/the-physics-of-drones/

 

[mxchapz]

Thank you! That helped a lot with understanding it but the wired article is very vague on how it relates to the propellers. Do you have any other links or if you know how please could you explain how it relates to propellers. (Sorry for my lack of knowledge I'm only in Year 12/Grade 11 so this is complicated stuff)

 

[FactChecker]

When you are dealing with a very fast rotating object like a propeller, you should be aware that there is a strong gyroscopic effect. If you are not familiar with gyroscopes and gyroscopic precession, this is the time to look at that subject. Also, see this.

 

[hutchphd]

A few questions for you to answer (presumably for a toy quadcopter)

1. What is the mass for each rotor blade?https://www.physicsforums.com/account/alerts
2. What is (roughly) the moment of inertia for each rotor blade?
3. What is the total angular momentum for a hovering quadcopter
4. How does this compare to an ordinary (Sikorsky-style) helicopter.
5. How much power is used to keep the quadcopter hovering (roughly)
6. How much rotational Kinetic Energy is in the blades at hover (roughly)

I believe you will find that the moment of inertia is far less important than the lift to drag characteristics of the rotor blades. Mostly because the answer to 3 is zero.