A New Propeller Design
© 2025 Volker W. Thürey, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Here a concept for a new propeller is presented. Instead of a single point where a propeller blade is fixed with the aircraft or the ship, I suggest a long axis. The axis runs horizontally. The blades are long rods. They are fixed at one side with the axis. Contrary to the usual propeller, a single propeller blade can be used. The blades may have an arbitrary length. It is limited only by the axis.
Everybody knows a propeller. The first airplane was drifted ashore by propellers. Therefore, the imagination of an alternative profile is hardly believable.
Here I suggest another propeller design. Instead of one point where the blades are fixed, I had the idea of a long axis. The axis runs horizontally. The blades have the form of long rods. They run spirally around the axis. They are fixed with the axis ahead and behind or at some points of the axis or all along the line. The right form of the blades effectuates the propulsion. An arbitrary number of blades is possible. Even a single propeller blade is imaginable. This is not conceivable in a conventional propeller. A propeller with a single blade would look so ‘ugly’ that I never have seen it. In my new propeller even with a single blade, a nearly symmetrical look is possible.
Instead of long rods as propeller blades, conventional propellers can be used.
There are one or two engines on the axis at one or both sides.
The idea came when I saw a similar propeller which was a generator for electricity, but it stood vertically. The design was nearly identical to mine, only the blades were different, of course. To generate power it had to rotate. It was driven by the wind.
Acknowledgements: I thank Bouchra Ben Zahir for a careful reading.