Numerical Estimation of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic Propeller Performance Using Rigid and Flexible Model

Abstract

Composite materials have offered some improvements on the performance of hydrodynamic and structures of marine constructions. The high strength to weight and stiffness to weight ratio might be tailored through the exploitation of the fiber orientation in order to reduce the load and the stress distribution of the structure. In order to fully explore the performance of the developed glass fiber reinforce plastics (GFRP) B-series propeller for traditional purse seine boat in the North Coast of Central Java, the aim of the research is focused on the comparison of the rigid and the flexible model adopted for the simulation analysis of the propeller performance. The thrust force, the torque moment and the efficiency of the two propeller models are discussed.