A panel method for the hydrodynamic analysis of a cavitating propeller with sheet and developed tip vortex cavitation

In this article, we present a boundary element method (or panel method) applied to a cavitating propeller to investigate its performance with/without cavitation. The present method models both sheet cavitation and developed tip vortex cavitation concurrently so they can coexist in the flow induced by a propeller. The sheet cavitation can be either partial cavitation or supercavitation depending on the imposed loading on the propeller, and the developed tip vortex cavitation considers loading from the blade tip to determine its sectional volume in space and time. Elaborate numerical schemes are introduced to model both cavities, and it is shown that the present method can predict cavity patterns closely following experimental observations at various loading conditions and cavitation numbers. With the predicted cavities considered, cavitating propeller performance is predicted in potential flow and compared with experimental data, results from a viscous flow solver, and fully wetted performance to verify the accuracy and feasibility of the present method. Steady flow is considered in this study, although the method can be readily extended to unsteady problems.