Theoretical Design And Performance Prediction Method Study Of Marine Propeller

Various types of ships appear accompany with the vigorous development of watertransportation. Any ship can’t work without propulsion system, and propulsion systemplays a decisive role on ship performance. Increasing of engine power caused by ship’slarge-scale and high-speed, puts forward higher requirements on the propulsion system. Asthe most widely used form in the propulsion system, propeller’s design is particularimportant.The methods of propeller design vary a lot. This paper aims to focus on marinepropeller’s theoretical design and performance prediction mainly by numerical calculationmethod and model test method. In the part of theoretical design, approximate method,rigorous method and the lifting surface theory were respectively utilized. In the part ofperformance prediction, surface panel method, open water test method and CFD numericalsimulation method were separately utilized. In the part of model test study, a series ofmodel tests of a three screw ship were carried out. And ship performance prediction wasmade based on the analysis of a series of model test data.In this paper, the following results are obtained through theoretical and model teststudy. Firstly, the calculation results of approximate method and that of rigorous methodshow good agreements with each other. Therefore, using lifting line theory method forevaluation in the preliminary design stage of marine propeller is feasible. And thecomparison with model test results shows that lifting surface theory method has goodaccuracy. Secondly, numerical simulation results show good agreements with the openwater test results of corresponding type propeller. In addition, through the analysis of themodel test data, three screw ship’s resistance conversion and effective horsepower forecastare given, as well as each propeller’s open water characteristic, resistance distribution, selfpropulsion factors and efficiency composition prediction.