Hydrodynamic Analysis of Marine Propeller for an Underwater Vehicle

An algorithm based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM) is employed to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance of the marine propeller used in an underwater vehicle (UV). Since UVs are operating at two different working conditions (surface and submerged conditions), thus the drag force and propeller performance are different.In this paper the analysis of the hydrodynamic performance at two submerged and surface conditions is presented. From the propulsor designer view point, marine propeller should provide the highest possible thrust, minimum torque and the highest efficiency. A High Skew Propeller (HSP) of 5-bladed is chosen for running the underwater vehicle. This propeller is operating at the stern of the hull, where the inflow velocity to the propeller is non-uniform. The main dimensions of the propeller are predicted based on the given required thrust and the defined operating condition. The calculation results show that the pressure and the hydrodynamic characteristics of the HSP at open water are in a good agreement with the experimental data.It is concluded that the presented method is a practical numerical tool to obtain the hydrodynamic characteristics of the propeller for the underwater vehicles.