PIV Measurements of Propeller Flow Field in a Large Cavitation Tunnel

Abstract

Flow field around a marine propeller was measured by means of PIV technique in a large cavitation tunnel of the Naval Systems Research Center, TRDI/Ministry of Defense, Japan. Test section of the tunnel is 2m(W) × 2m(H) × 10m(L) and it contains 2000m3 of water. 2-dimensional PIV (2-D PIV) and stereo PIV (SPIV) measurements were made for a five-bladed highly skewed marine propeller. In the case of 2-D PIV measurements, high spatial resolution measurements were possible by seeding relatively small amount of tracer particles. Phase-averaged flow fields showed details on evolution of tip vortices. In the case of SPIV measurements, much larger amounts of tracer particles were required, and it was difficult to perform high resolution measurements. Phase averaged velocity profiles from SPIV measurements showed good agreement with 2-D PIV-measured results. PIV-measured results were compared with results of LDV measurements. Although PIV-measured velocity profiles showed fairly good agreements with LDV-measured results, some discrepancies were found at the blade tip region.