Comparative measurements on the flow structure of a marine propeller wake between an open free surface and closed surface flows

Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of a free surface on the wake behind a rotating propeller, experiments were carried out in a circulating water channel for two cases: one with an open free surface and one with a closed free surface covered by a rigid plate. Four hundred instantaneous velocity fields were measured using a two-frame particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique at four different blade phases. These were ensemble-averaged to investigate the time-averaged flow structure in the near-wake region. For a surface ship, the flow behind the propeller is influenced by the hull wake and the free surface. The phase-averaged mean velocity fields show the potential wake and the viscous wake formed by the boundary layers developed on the blade surfaces. The interaction between the bilge vortices and the incoming flow along the ship’s hull deforms the wake structure. Tip vortices are generated periodically, and the slipstream contraction occurs in the near-wake region. The free surface was found to affect the axial velocity component and vortex structure behind the propeller. As the flow goes downstream, the tip and trailing vortices dissipate due to turbulent diffusion and active mixing with adjacent vortices.