Marine Propellers Design Using Slime Mould Optimization Algorithm to Improve the Efficiency and Reduce the Cavitation

Due to the presence of too many parameters in the problem of the marine propeller design such as the existence of several conflicting objectives, unstable and very complex environmental conditions, marine propellers design has been one of the challenging subjects for designers and researchers in this field. Nowadays, meta-heuristic algorithms are used as one of the highly efficient solutions to solve complex engineering problems. In this paper, for the first time, SMA algorithm is used to design the marine propellers. For this purpose, two targets viz. maximize the efficiency and minimize the cavitation, which are in conflict with each other, as the fitness function is considered. To do this, during several trials, the effect of two important parameters on the fitness function, i.e. chord and thickness of the propeller, is calculated and the most optimal mode is selected by the SMA algorithm. In order to compare the results, the benchmark algorithms such as GWO، ALO، MFO و BBO are used. The results show that the propeller with 5 or 6 blades with rotation speeds between 180 to 190 RPM will have the best performance in the tradeoff between efficiency and cavitation. Results indicate the improvement of 2.4 percent in efficiency and 21dB reduction in cavitation level.