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Marine propellers performance and flow-field prediction by a free-wake panel method

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Abstract

A Boundary Element Method (BEM) hydrodynamics combined with a flow-alignment technique to evaluate blades shed vorticity is presented and applied to a marine propeller in open water. Potentialities and drawbacks of this approach in capturing propeller performance, slipstream velocities, blade pressure distribution and pressure disturbance in the flow-field are highlighted by comparisons with available experiments and RANSE results. In particular, correlations between the shape of the convected vortex-sheet and the accuracy of BEM results are discussed throughout the paper. To this aim, the analysis of propeller thrust and torque is the starting point towards a detailed discussion on the capability of a 3-D free-wake BEM hydrodynamic approach to describe the local features of the flow-field behind the propeller disk, in view of applications to propulsive configurations where the shed wake plays a dominant role.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Italian Ship Model Basin, CNR-INSEAN, Rome, Italy

    Luca Greco, Roberto Muscari & Claudio Testa

  2. Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo “M. Picone”, CNR-IAC, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Di Mascio

Authors
  1. Luca Greco
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  2. Roberto Muscari
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  3. Claudio Testa
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  4. Andrea Di Mascio
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Additional information

Biography: GRECO Luca (1976-), Male, Ph. D., Researcher

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Greco, L., Muscari, R., Testa, C. et al. Marine propellers performance and flow-field prediction by a free-wake panel method. J Hydrodyn 26, 780–795 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1001-6058(14)60087-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1001-6058(14)60087-1

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