Study on the Angle-of-Attack Characteristics of the Rudder in Rotating Propeller Flow

This study aims at numerically investigating the angle of attack characteristics of the rudder behind a rotating propeller. The rotating propeller of 5 blades and the full spade rudder are placed in the numerical water tunnel with a uniform flow condition to consider propeller-rudder interaction. The turbulence closure model is employed to simulate the three-dimensional unsteady incompressible viscous turbulent flow around the propeller and the rudder. The present numerical method are well verified by comparing with the experimental results. In order to identify the dependence of the angle of attack of the rudder on the rudder angle, a wide range of rudder angles is considered. The present study carried out the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the angle of attack in terms of the pressure distribution, streamlines and the evaluation of the flow incidence, resulting in that the angle of attack increases as we move from the root and the tip to the center of the rudder, regardless of the rudder angle. The distribution of the angle-of-attack along the span is strongly affected by rotating propeller flow and rudder angle. Consequently, the distribution of the angle-of-attack of the oncoming flow against the rudder leading edge plays a role in determination of rudder performance.