Design of a marine propeller for scale racing boats in a speed and energy efficiency contest

Daniel E Riveros Nieto

doi:10.25043/19098642.213

Abstract

The process of optimized design, evaluation and manufacturing of high energy efficiency propellers for competition boats at scale is addressed in this research. This project uses the stages of hydrodynamic design, numerical testing and manufacturing of four prototypes as example. During the hydrodynamic design, three design methodologies were compared, namely: Blade Element Theory, lifting line theory and design based on DTMB propeller series. The objective function of the optimized design is based on obtaining the chord and pitch distribution that generates the greatest thrust, speed and efficiency. Similarly, the performance of each prototype was evaluated by CFD in a virtual channel registering thrust, torque and speed. Finally, the additive manufacturing process applied is presented. Prototyped propellers present efficiencies and maximum speeds approximately 15% higher than recommended commercial propellers for this type of boats. This study was developed by the Hydrometra group in the framework of the international competition Hydrocontest 2017.

Highlights

Naval propulsion based on propellers has been an efficient and reliable propulsion method (Carlton, 2010)
The design of these propellers has evolved gradually in tandem with the development of theories whose objective is to model the hydrodynamic phenomena associated with the generation of lift and drag forces in a rotating solid on which a flow impinges
All geometries present a skew radial distribution based on the original distribution of the DTMB 4119 propeller because the effect of the skew on the performance of the propeller is out of the reach of this analysis

Summary

Introduction

Naval propulsion based on propellers has been an efficient and reliable propulsion method (Carlton, 2010) The design of these propellers has evolved gradually in tandem with the development of theories whose objective is to model the hydrodynamic phenomena associated with the generation of lift and drag forces in a rotating solid on which a flow impinges. The literature that can be considered as an initial basis for the design of a propeller These series have dimensionless geometries based on the length of the chord; this allows adapting the design to geometric design requirements, conserving the properties of the propellers originally developed during the generation of the series of propellers (Carlton, 2010). Some of these series are DTMB (Brizzolara, 2008) and Wageningen B series (Oosterveld, 1975)

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Conclusion