Investigation of Hydro-Elastic Performance of Marine Propellers Using Fluid-Structure Interaction Analysis

To investigate the hydrodynamic benefits of composite materials marine propeller, CFD-FEM fluid structure interaction (FSI) methodology using STAR-CCM+ and Abaqus with co-simulation is adapted for the hydro-elastic interaction simulation of composite propeller. FSI simulation reliabilities are validated with experimental data of P5479 marine propeller. KP458 propeller geometry are used for CFD simulation of rigid blade and FSI simulation of flexible one under the propeller open water (POW) test condition and compared with conventional BEM-FEM results to understand the blade deformation characteristics and induced performance changes. KVLCC2-KP458 self-propulsion FSI simulations were conducted and confirmed the effect of unsteady behavior of flexible marine propeller for the propulsion performance in the wake field. From the results, the decided difference between rigid and flexible one is observed and the merits of flexible marine propeller is confirmed quantitatively.