An Investigation of Wake Model and Its Effect on the Hydrodynamic Performance of Propellers by Using a Surface Panel Method

Abstract

In this paper a surface panel method formulation for analysis of a marine propeller for different wake models is described. The method is based on Green's theorem which is composed of the combination of dipoles and sources distribution on the blade, hub and also, dipole distribution on the trailing vortex wake to represent the potential flow around the propeller. Investigation of three kinds of wake models (linear wake model, devised wake model based on slip ratio and new wake model based on thrust loading coefficient) for a marine propeller are presented. New wake model based on thrust loading coefficient uses the momentum theory technique in conjunction with iterative procedure to generate the wake model. Using a momentum theory, the ratio of propeller wake radius at the infinite downstream to the blade radius can be obtained. The first solution is obtained based on linear wake model. The iteration process is repeated until the results are converged. The calculated results are in good agreement compared with experimental data and other methods.