An Experimental Study on Tip Vortex Cavitation Suppression in a Marine Propeller

Abstract

Normally, tip vortex cavitation (TVC) is first observed at a certain location behind the tips of propeller blades. Therefore, TVC is important for naval ships and research vessels that require raising the cavitation inception speed to maximum possible values. The concepts for alleviating the tip vortex are summarized by Platzer and Souders (1979), who carried out a thorough literature survey. Active control of TVC involves the injection of a polymer or water from the blade tip. The main effect of such mass injection (both water and polymer solutions) into the vortex core is an increase in the core radius, consequently delaying TVC inception. However, the location of the injection port needs to be selected with great care to ensure that the mass injection is effective in delaying TVC inception. In the present study, the authors propose a semiactive control scheme that is achieved by attaching a thread at the propeller tip. The main idea of a semiactive control is that because of its flexibility, the attached thread can be sucked into the low-pressure region closer to the vortex core center. An experimental study using a scale model was carried out in the cavitation tunnel at the Seoul National University. It was found that a flexible thread can effectively suppress the occurrence of TVC under the design condition for a model propeller.