The Analysis of Propulsion Performance of Mainstream Ship's Propeller in The Yangtze River

In order to analyse the propulsion performance of the mainstream ship's propeller in The Yangtze River route, this study's propeller is designed according to a certain prototype in The Yangtze River which is also taken as the research object in this study. Its propulsion performance in uniform flow and non-uniform flow are respectively analysed by CFD method; and the cavitation effect on propeller performance is also studied. Then the propeller thrust and torque under different speed are obtained; open water efficiency and pressure distribution on blade are calculated as well. The results show that the non-uniform flow has changed the flow field near the propeller, causing the propelling performance in the non-uniform flow is higher than the calculated value in the uniform flow at the same speed of advance. The thrust and torque of a single blade will fluctuate greatly at different circumferential positions, while for overall propeller, non-uniform flow has little influence on thrust coefficient and torque coefficient. The results also illustrate that SST model is more suitable for analysing the propulsion performance under cavitation effect. And the difference between these two cavitation models is subtle. It is found that the smaller the cavitation number is, the stronger the cavitation is and the greater the influence on propulsion performance is. Cavitation happens when advance ratio is relatively higher.