Influence of Marine Propeller Geometry on Turbulence Model Selection for CFD Simulations

Abstract

Abstract One of the big challenges yet to be addressed in the numerical simulation of wetted flow over marine propellers is the influence of propellers' geometry on the selection of turbulence models. Since the Reynolds number is a function of the geometrical parameters of the blades, the flow type is controlled by these parameters. The majority of previous studies employed turbulence models that are only appropriate for fully turbulent flows, and consequently, they mostly caused high discrepancy between numerical predictions and corresponding experimental measurements specifically at geometrical parameters generating laminar and transient flows. The present article proposes a complete procedure of computational fluid dynamics simulation for wetted flows over marine propellers using ANSYS FLUENT 16 and employing both transition-sensitive and fully turbulent models for comparison. The K-Kl-ω transition model and the fully turbulent standard K-ε model are suggested for this purpose. The investigation is carried out for two different propellers in geometrical features: the INSEAN E779a model and the Potsdam Propeller Test Case (PPTC) model. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the K-Kl-ω transition model for the INSEAN E779a propeller rather than the PPTC propeller. This can be interpreted as the narrow-bladed and small-diameter propellers have more likely laminar and transient flows over its blades.