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Investigating the Performance of Twin Marine Propellers in Different Ship Wake Fields Using an Unsteady Viscous and Inviscid Solver

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Abstract

In this study, the performance of a twin-screw propeller under the influence of the wake field of a fully appended ship was investigated using a coupled Reynolds-averaged Navier—Stokes (RANS)/boundary element method (BEM) code. The unsteady BEM is an efficient approach to predicting propeller performance. By applying the time-stepping method in the BEM solver, the trailing vortex sheet pattern of the propeller can be accurately captured at each time step. This is the main innovation of the coupled strategy. Furthermore, to ascertain the effect of the wake field of the ship with acceptable accuracy, a RANS solver was developed. A finite volume method was used to discretize the Navier—Stokes equations on fully unstructured grids. To simulate ship motions, the volume of the fluid method was applied to the RANS solver. The validation of each solver (BEM/RANS) was separately performed, and the results were compared with experimental data. Ultimately, the BEM and RANS solvers were coupled to estimate the performance of a twin-screw propeller, which was affected by the wake field of the fully appended hull. The proposed model was applied to a twin-screw oceanography research vessel. The results demonstrated that the presented model can estimate the thrust coefficient of a propeller with good accuracy as compared to an experimental self-propulsion test. The wake sheet pattern of the propeller in open water (uniform flow) was also compared with the propeller in a real wake field.

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Abbreviations

ϕ(x, t):

Velocity potential

r :

Position vector between the source point and field point

μ :

Doublet intensity of wake panel

V(t):

Linear velocity

V rel :

Relative velocity

Re :

Reynolds number

C D :

Drag coefficient

D :

Propeller diameter

J :

Advanced coefficient

K Q :

Torque coefficient

F :

Hydrodynamic force

ρ :

Fluid density

g :

Gravity

ν m :

Mean perturbation velocity

n :

Unit normal vector of panel pointing outward of the body

X i :

Wake sheet node position

Ω(t):

Angular velocity

P :

Pressure on panel

P ∞ :

Far-field pressure

C p :

Pressure coefficient

n :

Propeller rotational speed

V a :

Freestream fluid velocity

K T :

Thrust coefficient

M :

Hydrodynamic moment

v :

Fluid kinematic viscosity

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Iranian National Institute for Oceanography and Atmospheric Science (INIOAS), Fatemi Ave., 14155-4781, Tehran, Iran

    Saeed Najafi

  2. Department of Maritime Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Hafez Ave., 15875-4413, Tehran, Iran

    Mehdi Pourmostafa

Authors
  1. Saeed Najafi
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  2. Mehdi Pourmostafa
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Correspondence to Saeed Najafi.

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Article Highlights

• The performance of a twin-screw propeller under the influence of the wake field of a fully appended ship was investigated using a coupled RANS/BEM aproach.

• The trailing vortex sheet pattern of the propeller accurately captured at each time step.

• Self-propulsion experiment was performed numarically using this coupled solvers and results compared with physical wave tank data.

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Najafi, S., Pourmostafa, M. Investigating the Performance of Twin Marine Propellers in Different Ship Wake Fields Using an Unsteady Viscous and Inviscid Solver. J. Marine. Sci. Appl. 21, 92–105 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-022-00279-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-022-00279-6

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