Numerical investigation of unsteady cavitating turbulent flow around a full scale marine propeller

This paper treats the unsteady cavitating turbulent flow around a full scale marine propeller operated in non-uniform ship wake. The RANS method combined with k-omega SST turbulence model and the mass transfer cavitation model was applied for the flow simulation. It is noted that both the propeller performance and the unsteady features of cavitating turbulent flow around the propeller predicted by the numerical calculation agreed well with the experimental data. Due to the non-uniform wake inflow and gravity effect, there occurred periodical procedure for cavity development such as cavitation inception, growth, shrinking, etc near the blade tip for the propeller. The study also indicated that there was considerably large pressure fluctuation near the propeller during the operation. The 1st order frequency of pressure fluctuation predicted by numerical simulation equaled the rotating frequency of propeller blades. Both amplitude and frequency agreed with the experimental results fairly well.