Viscous Flow Around Marine Propellers Using Boundary-Layer Strip Theory

Abstract

This paper presents a method to analyze the viscous flow around marine propellers using boundary layer strip theory. A state-of-the-art two-dimensional boundary-layer formulation is coupled to a state-of-the-art perturbation potential panel method used in marine propeller flow analysis. The coupling procedure is applied along strips of the blade where two-dimensional boundary-layer flow is assumed. For this paper these strips were assumed to be constant radial strips of the blade. The resulting method is applied to a conventional marine propeller and comparisons to experiments are given. Results include the global quantities of thrust, torque, and efficiency and the local strip quantities of displacement thickness and section drag coefficient. The resulting comparisons, showing the applicability of the method to conventional marine propellers, are quite good.