Numerical Investigation on Hydrodynamic Performance and Structural Response of Composite Propeller

In this paper, the hydrodynamic load of the composite propeller was calculated based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD),FEM was used to calculate structural response of composite blades. Based on the bidirectional coupling algorithm, the fluid-structure interaction simulation of the composite propeller under uniform flow was carried out. The hydrodynamic performance and structural response of the composite propeller with different advance coefficients and different ply angles were studied. The results show that, the propulsive efficiency of the composite propeller is higher than that of rigid propeller when advance coefficient J ≤ 0.8. With the increase of advance coefficient, the propulsive efficiency of the composite propeller increases first and then decreases, the maximum value can be obtained when advance coefficient J=0.8. The distribution of total deformation and equivalent stress of the blades are great related with ply angles. Compared with the metallic propeller, the pitch angle of the composite propeller is smaller. When the reduced pitch angle matches the change of the attack angle, the propulsive efficiency of the propeller can be improved adaptively.