Numerical Study on the Unsteady Characteristics of the Propeller Cavitation in Uniform and Nonuniform Wake Flows

Propeller cavitation is a problematic issue because of its negative effects, such as performances losses, noise,vibration and erosion. Numerical methodology is an effective and efficient technical tool for the study of propeller cavitation, however, it is hard to capture tip-vortex cavitation in the previous work by using common turbulence models based on turbulent-viscosity hypothesis. In this work, the Reynolds-Averaged Naiver-Stokes(RANS)approach, adopting the Reynolds stress turbulence model(RSM), is taken to study the unsteady characteristics of the cavitation on the four-bladed INSEAN E779 A model propeller. The numerical simulation was carried out using the commercial CFD software ANSYS Fluent 14.0. One kind of uniform wake flow and two kinds of nonuniform wake flows are considered here. The results in the uniform flow show a good agreement with previous experimental results on both the sheet cavitation and the tip vortex cavitation and prove the ability of the RSM on capturing the tip vortex cavitation. Two kinds of nonuniform wake flows are designed based on the previous experimental researches and the unsteady characteristics of the propeller cavitation are analyzed by comparing the results in the uniform and two nonuniform wake flows together.

Numerical investigation of the influence of vortex generator on propeller cavitation and hull pressure fluctuation by DDES

In this study,the delayed detached eddy simulation(DDES)is coupled with a homogenous cavitation model to simulate the cavitating turbulent flow around a propeller behind a full body ship with special emphasis on the influence of the vortex generator(VG)on the propeller cavitation and the hull pressure fluctuation.The small calculation uncertainty as evaluated by the DDES verification and validation(V&V)method indicates that the present simulation can accurately reproduce the propeller performance and cavitation,and the predicted hull pressure fluctuation is in a fairly good agreement with the available experimental data.The mechanism is explored through the current numerical results how the VG affects the local velocity distribution,along with the influences of the VG on the propeller cavitation and the hull pressure fluctuation.It is shown that the streamwise vortex is induced by the VG near the hull boundary layer.The very low velocity region in the hull wake is reduced due to the effect of the streamwise vortex.Besides,the propeller cavitation develops more mildly and the hull pressure fluctuation decreases due to the influence of the VG.

Propeller cavitation viscous simulation and low-frequency noise prediction with non-uniform inflow

Aiming at predicting ship propeller＇s cavitation low-frequency noise spectrum, a hy- brid method combining the cavitation multi-phase flow unsteady simulation with the pulsating spherical bubble radiated noise theory was proposed. Then, both of the NSRDC4383 5-bladed propeller and a 7-bladed highly-skewed propeller＇s cavitation low-frequency noise spectrum sub- jected to the full appended SUBOFF submarine＇s nominal wake were investigated. The effects of thrust loading and cavity extension on the discrete line spectrum frequency and its spectrum source level were analyzed. The improved Sauer cavitation model and modified shear stress transport turbulence models were adopted to simulate the propeller sheet cavitation along with integrated verification. The cavity volume acceleration related to the characteristic length rep- resenting the unsteady sheet cavitation extension, which was more reasonable than the spherical cavity hypothesis, was used to the cavitation low-frequency noise spectrum prediction. Results show that the 7-bladed propeller truly appreciates the advantages of smaller loads, latter cav- itation inception and lower cavitating tonal noise comparing to that of the 5 blades. Under the same cavitation index based on ship speed, the interaction of wake inflow and blades will induce significantly low frequency line spectrums and strengthen their source level. Given the submarine wake, cavitation index and rotating speed condition, the thrust, torque and cavity area of blades will decrease with the decreasing load, but the fluctuated acceleration amplitude of cavity volume and the tonal noise spectrum level increases, and the discrete line spectrum components shift mainly to the even times of the BPF harmonics from the odd. If the cavita- tion extension lightens, the BPF harmonics line spectrums will be depressed, and the spectrum level at 1 kHz reduces 2.54 dB. The numerical method above constructs a numerical system to measure the cavitating hydrodynamics and noise performances of ship propellers, which can be productive for the numerical design of wake adapted low noise submarine propeller.

Inverse problem of ship propeller cavitationnoise radiation

On the basis of the theory of the propeller sheet cavitation noise radiation, this paper proposes a method for inversion of ship propeller noise radiation for the non-uniform wake field behind a ship. The Markovian estimation of the wake field parameters defined in the paper is obtained, and the existence and uniqueness of the solution of the inverse problem is discussed.