PROP_DESIGN is open source, public domain, aircraft propeller design software. Although intended for traditional aircraft propellers, PROP_DESIGN can provide useful insights into similar products:

• Axial Flow Fans
• Counter-rotating Propellers
• Electric Ducted Fans - EDFs
• Geared Turbofans - GTFs
• Open Rotors
• Propfans
• Toroidal Propellers (Swept Back / Swept Forward) with connected or open tips
• Turbofans (both Rotors and Stators)
• Ultra-High Bypass Engines - UHBs
• Unducted Fans - UDFs

Besides traditional aircraft, PROP_DESIGN can also aid the design of:

• Airboats
• Computers
• Drones
• Hovercraft (aka Hovercars)
• HVAC Systems
• Radio Controlled Toys - RC Toys
• Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAVs
• Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft - VTOL Aircraft

PROP_DESIGN allows for the design of unducted or ducted aircraft propellers with straight or swept blades and constant or elliptical chord distributions. PROP_DESIGN can be used for all altitudes covered by the U.S. Standard Atmosphere of 1976. Propeller efficiencies of approx. 80-90% are easily attained, even for effective velocities as high as Mach .85. Static optimized propellers can have fan efficiencies close to 100%. Below are some other features of PROP_DESIGN:

• Uses double precision math, for accuracy and speed
• Requires few computational resources (i.e. minimal CPU, memory, and storage requirements)
• Executes quickly, even on mobile computing devices such as; laptops and tablets
• Computes the static condition, the case where there is no forward motion of the propeller. This is something that traditional propeller design programs can't do
• Automatically determines the optimum propeller geometry for any operating condition that a solution exists
• Can be used with designs that incorporate stators or counter-rotation
• Designed from the ground up to make comparing two different aircraft propellers or two different operating conditions easy
• Can analyze fixed pitch and constant speed propellers
• Creates aircraft propeller performance maps for fixed pitch and constant speed propellers
• Aids the creation of hot shape aircraft propeller/fan CAD models
• Can be used to find the optimum Fortran compiler options for your CPU
• Very quickly and easily create 3d content for art and games, without having to do any propeller/fan design at all, using PROP_DESIGN_XYZ
• Visualize the wake with PROP_DESIGN_ANALYSIS. Depending on the design, the wake can expand or contract. This is a feature you won't find in older propeller design codes
• PROP_DESIGN was released as open source, public domain software, so you are completely free to do whatever you like with it

Note:

In the past, aircraft propellers have also been called airscrews. This is due to the fact that, aircraft propellers work their way through air, in a manner similar to how screws work their way through solids. This does not help to solve the mathematics of aircraft propeller design and analysis. However, it is a simple way of understanding how aircraft propellers function.

Below are pictures showing some of the products PROP_DESIGN can be used to design and analyze: