Hydro-elastic aspects of a composite marine propeller in accordance with ply lamination methods

In a composite material, stiffness and strength in a desired direction can be controlled via the combination and stacking of materials. As such, the application of composite materials has spread to almost every industry. To utilize this advantage in the design of a marine propeller with complex geometry, accurate and practical analysis tools that consider both the hydroelastic behavior and ply-stacking structure of composite materials are required. Therefore, steady and unsteady BEM–FEM FSI algorithms of a composite propeller blade and a simple finite element model that considers the lamination modulus of fiber materials have been introduced in this study. In addition, a comparative study using CFD–FEM-based FSI analysis and numerical investigation of the hydroelastic behavior of a composite propeller in the ship wake field have been performed based on the present methodology.