Recent Developments in Computational Methods for the Analysis of Ducted Propellers in Open Water

This article presents an overview of the recent developments at Instituto Superior Tecnico and Maritime Research Institute Netherlands in applying computational methods for the hydrodynamic analysis of ducted propellers. The developments focus on the propeller performance prediction in open water conditions using boundary element methods and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solvers. The article starts with an estimation of the numerical errors involved in both methods. Then, the different viscous mechanisms involved in the ducted propeller flow are discussed and numerical procedures for the potential flow solution proposed. Finally, the numerical predictions are compared with experimental measurements.