Automated Design of Propulsor Blades for High-Speed Ocean Vehicle Applications

摘要

This paper presents several computational tools for the analysis and automated design of propulsor blades for high-speed ocean vehicles. The effects of unsteady propeller cavitation are determined via an existing lifting surface method which is modified in order to search for the location of the cavity detachment line, thus allowing for the modeling of mid-chord sheet cavitation. The inflow/propeller interaction (effective wake problem) is determined via a robust numerical finite volume method. The design of the blades is accomplished via an optimization method which maximizes the efficiency for given thrust and prescribed cavity constraints.