Abstract
The paper describes an investigation of the hydrodynamic performances of a five-bladed controllable pitch propeller, whose geometry was provided by Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (SVA) Potsdam GmbH Model Basin. Both cavitating and non-cavitating regimes are numerically simulated for different advance ratio coefficients. The numerical approach is based on a finite volume approach in which closure to the turbulence is achieved through detached eddy simulation (DES). Propeller open water (POW) characteristics are computed, and the numerical solutions are validated through extensive comparisons with experimental data. In addition, the bi-phasic flow for the cavitating regime is simulated, for which comparisons with the cavitation sketches are performed to check the ability of the solver to estimate the cavitation extent. Grid convergence tests are performed for both working regimes together with validation and verification checks, not only to size the level of the numerical errors, but also to prove the robustness of the chosen numerical approach. Finally, a set of final remarks will conclude the present research.
Highlights
For a ship propeller the cavitation initiation may lead to a significant performance degradation and can produce vibration and noise
The present paper describes a numerical investigation aimed at clarifying the details of the flow around the VP 1304 controllable pitch propeller, known in the naval architecture community as the Potsdam propeller test case (PPTC)
Despite the good resemblance between the simulation and the experiment, one may notice that an additional thin cavitation sheet, which was not seen during the experiments, develops around the higher relative radii of the trailing edge of the numerical solution
Summary
For a ship propeller the cavitation initiation may lead to a significant performance degradation and can produce vibration and noise. The main advantage of the viscous flow solution method is the possibility of a complete description of the flow features for a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from simple propeller analyses at both model and full scales [16,17,18] to self-propulsion in waves [19] or during maneuvers [20] They can be relatively easy to apply for various problems such as ventilation of the propellers [21,22,23], oblique flow [24,25,26], wake analysis [27,28,29] and cavitation [30,31,32,33]. Comparisons with the experimental data will be given to size the appropriateness of the numerical approach and the robustness of the flow solver
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