In an effort to reduce the environmental impact of aviation, distributed propulsion (DP) aircraft concepts have gained attention due to them being suitable candidates for electrification, contributing to the reduction of direct CO2  emissions. Electrical driven propellers can be significantly more efficient than regular jet engines, a desirable characteristic in DP configurations. Nevertheless, hybrid-electric, or fully electric architectures are generally associated with a higher overall weight. The aero-propulsive coupling between the propulsion system and the lifting surfaces can bring performances benefits that could compensate for some of these downsides. Propeller based propulsion is the preferred alternative for electrically powered propulsion. The interaction between a propeller’s slipstream and a wing in a tractor configuration can bring an increase in lifting capabilities and aerodynamic efficiency.

Propeller-wing interaction leads to a complex unsteady phenomenon. A comprehensive study requires experimental campaigns or computationally expensive methods. However, the interaction attributed to the time-averaged phenomenology can be estimated with computationally inexpensive methods. A numerical model capable of estimating the lift and drag distribution over a wing due to the interaction of an array of propellers in a tractor configuration was developed to this purpose. This model is based on a Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) method, which was used to estimate the propeller forces, and a Vortex Lattice Method (VLM) lifting line model to describe the wing.