Numerical Investigation for CFD Simulation of Open Water Characteristics and Cavitation Inception of Marine Propeller Blade

Abstract

With the recent advancements in underwater technology the need for improvement in operation and range of underwater vehicles to operate at abnormal speed increased timely. To achieve this need for improvisation of open water efficiency of the marine propeller blade is taken into consideration. The operational range of such marine propellers mainly depends on its open water characteristics prediction. This paper investigates about the methodology for determination of open water characteristics and cavitation inception of a marine propeller which are important for prediction of propeller performance. To predict, the open water characteristics a four bladed propeller is considered to compute the flow simulation, cavitation inception, velocity flow fields around the propeller blade in a uniform wake flow. Steady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes [RANS] simulations with k-omega (k-ω) SST (shear stress transport) turbulence model and wall functions in combination with Multiple Reference Frames [MRF] were used for the simulations. The results obtained from the CFD simulations are validated with the earlier works.