Study on Unsteady Hydrodynamic Performance of Propeller in Waves

The speed of a ship sailing in waves always slows down due to the decrease in efficiency of the propeller. So it is necessary and essential to analyze the unsteady hydrodynamic performance of propeller in waves. This paper is based on the numerical simulation and experimental research of hydrodynamics performance when the propeller is under wave conditions. Open-water propeller performance in calm water is calculated by commercial codes and the results are compared to experimental values to evaluate the accuracy of the numerical simulation method. The first-order Volume of Fluid(VOF) wave method in STAR CCM+ is utilized to simulate the three-dimensional numerical wave. According to the above prerequisite, the numerical calculation of hydrodynamic performance of the propeller under wave conditions is conducted, and the results reveal that both thrust and torque of the propeller under wave conditions reveal intense unsteady behavior. With the periodic variation of waves, ventilation, and even an effluent phenomenon appears on the propeller. Calculation results indicate, when ventilation or effluent appears, the numerical calculation model can capture the dynamic characteristics of the propeller accurately, thus providing a significant theory foundation forfurther studying the hydrodynamic performance of a propeller in waves.

Mechanism analysis of hysteretic aerodynamic characteristics on variable-sweep wings

Variable-sweep wings have large shape-changing capabilities and wide flight envelops,which are considered as one of the most promising directions for intelligent morphing UAVs.Aerodynamic investigations always focus on several static states in the varying sweep process,which ignore the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics.However,deviations to static aerodynamic forces are inevitably caused by dynamic sweep motion.In this work,first,unsteady aerodynamic characteristics on a typical variable-sweep UAV with large aspect ratio were analyzed.Then,deep mechanism of unsteady aerodynamic characteristics in the varying sweep process was studied.Finally,numerical simulation method integrated with structured moving overset grids was applied to solve the unsteady fluid of varying sweep process.The simulation results of a sweep forward-backward circle show a distinct dynamic hysteresis loop surrounding the static data for the aerodynamic forces.Compared with the static lift coefficients,at the same sweep angles,dynamic lift coefficient in sweep forward process are all smaller,while dynamic sweep backward lift coefficient are all larger.In addition,dynamic deviations to static lift coefficient are positively related with the varying sweep speeds.Mechanism study on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics indicates that three key factors lead to the dynamic hysteresis loop in varying sweep process.They are the effects of additional velocity caused by varying sweep motion,the effects of flow hysteresis and viscosity.The additional velocity induced by sweep motion affects the transversal flow direction along the wing and the effective angle of attack at the airfoil profile.The physical properties of flow,the hysteresis and viscosity affect the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics by flow separation and induced vortexes.

On the hydrodynamics of hydraulic machinery and flow control

Hydraulic machinery mainly includes turbine and pump, which is closely related to national economy and people＇s livelihood involving aerospace industry, marine engineering, hydropower engineering, petroleum industry, chemical industry, mining industry, biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, agricultural water-soil engineering, etc.. The internal flow of hydraulic machinery is extremely complex, and its characteristics can be summarized as high Reynolds number, multi-scales, inhomogeneous and vortex-dominant unsteady turbulence which interact with the rotating dynamic boundary（rotor blade）. Based on the analysis of the internal flow characteristics of hydraulic machinery, the author and his research team successively proposed a rotation correction model, a curvature corrected filter-based model, a scalable detached eddy simulation method, and a non-linear hybrid RANS/LES turbulence model to capture unsteady flow structures and then predict hydraulic performance and dynamic characteristics more accurately. According to the analysis on the internal flow, the corresponding flow control measures were put forward. It was verified by experiments that these methods could significantly improve the hydraulic performance, anti-cavitation performance and dynamic characteristics（pressure pulsation and vibration） of hydraulic machinery in a certain range of operating conditions. In addition, the mechanism how flow control measures influence internal flow was analyzed in depth, aiming at finding a feasible and effective way to improve hydraulic performance, anti-cavitation performance and dynamic characteristics of hydraulic machinery.