Propeller Design and Development

Backgrounds

PROPDEV is aimed at bringing the industrial depth and the research strengths of the CRS community together by combining propulsion design and tool development into a cohesive working group (WG). PROPDEV is specifically targeting the development of the overall propulsion design process where the interaction of the propulsor with the hull and appendages; shaft brackets, bossings, rudders, etc, can be investigated to enable an optimization of the overall propulsion design. This new WG attempts to exploit and enhance the capabilities of the PROCAL (propeller analysis) tool within a focused design study for a conventional twin screw cruise liner hull form, including the integration of modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for appendage assessment.
PROPDEV is the immediate successor to the PROCAL WG (02-08), but pulls threads of research and experience from numerous previous WG’s including, PROPTOL WG (hull and propeller geometry) (88-92), PIF WG (prediction of effective wakefield) (98-02) and PRES (radiated pressure field) (95-03).

Objectives

A long tem objective of the CRS community is to have a suite of programs available to examine, explore and address all aspects of ship propulsion. The objective of PROPDEV is to provide a process for delivering improvements in hydrodynamic propulsion optimisation. This includes exploiting and building on the work of PROCAL. There are two distinct aspects to PROPDEV:

Develop a process with practical guidelines for the hydrodynamic optimization of the propeller-afterbody configuration, such that the interaction between the hull and shaft-line components, in combination with the propeller/propulsor can provide overall efficiency improvements.
Tool development where existing methods and codes are incorporated and or modified to form the basis of the process required to deliver the overall propeller, hull and shaft-line optimization. PROCAL being considered as a key component of this development.

Whilst these two aspects are relatively distinct, they offer the opportunity to have a user-driven further development of PROCAL, whilst a continuous longer term development of the PROCAL code is ensured.

Expected Results

An evaluation of the current design parameters, limitations and analysis methods used in the optimization of vessel propulsion shaft lines, tailored towards twin screw open shaft arrangements.
Results from an analytical (CFD) programme of predictions for a twin screw cruise vessel with propulsion shaft-line variations.
Preliminary guidelines for the specification and design of a twin screw shaft-line propulsion arrangement tailored towards optimum hull efficiency.
Development of a process for the evaluation of an effective wake field for use in the PROCAL suite.
An improved sheet cavitation model within the PROCAL suite.