DuctAPE is a code for the aerodynamic evaluation of axisymmetric ducted rotors designed for incompressible (low mach) applications. It is strongly influenced by the underlying theory of Ducted Fan Design Code (DFDC), utilizing a linear axisymmetric vortex panel method for duct and center body, blade element lifting line rotor representation, and psuedo wake-screw wake model axisymmetrically smeared onto an elliptic grid for efficient computation.
DuctAPE has been developed specifically for applications in gradient-based optimization settings. The default solver methods have been chosen to balance code efficiency as well as robustness while simultaneously allowing for efficient automatic differentiation through DuctAPE employing ImplicitAD.jl.