Numerical and Experimental Study of Fluid-Structure Interaction of a Marine Propeller

Abstract

Flow-induced vibrations are sometimes catastrophic for mechanical structures and constitute an important dimensioning factor. This study is motivated by modelling and numerical simulation of fluid structure interaction phenomena (FSI) goshawks marine propellers. Indeed, in this work, numerical and experimental modal analyses are performed in air and in water. The resolution of this problem is achieved by one-way coupling with ANSYS Mechanical code of structures (CSD, Computational Structure Dynamics) and ANSYS CFX code of fluids (CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics). This numerical study would not have been possible without Geometric Characterization of the Propeller, accomplished through a digital comparator. For validating and evaluating the FSI simulation, an experimental study is conducted in the laboratory of vibration using a two-channel vibration analyser FFT/DFT type 2035 and subsonic wind tunnel "TE44CH". The experimental tool has allowed finding the variation of the vibration amplitudes as a function of the fluid speed. This predicts the critical inflow speed. The results show the fluid flow importance to the local vibration of the propeller. A comparison of numerical and experimental results is then carried out.