Prediction of Unsteady Developed Tip Vortex Cavitation and Its Effect on the Induced Hull Pressures

Reducing the on-board noise and fluctuating pressures on the ship hull has been challenging and represent added value research tasks in the maritime industry. Among the possible sources for the unpalatable vibrations on the hull, propeller-induced pressures have been one of the main causes due to the inherent rotational motion of propeller and its proximity to the hull. In previous work, a boundary element method, which solves for the diffraction potentials on the ship hull due to the propeller, has been used to determine the propeller induced hull pressures. The flow around the propeller was evaluated via a panel method which solves in time for the propeller loading, trailing wake, and the sheet cavities. In this article, the propeller panel method is extended so that it also solves for the shape of developed tip vortex cavities, the effects of which are also included in the evaluation of the hull pressures. The employed unsteady wake alignment scheme is first applied, in the absence of cavitation, to investigate the propeller performance in non-axisymmetric inflow, such as the inclined-shaft flow or the flow behind an upstream body. In the latter case, the propeller panel method is coupled with a Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solver to determine the effective wake at the propeller plane. The results, including the propeller induced hull pressures, are compared with those measured in the experiments as well as with those from RANS, where the propeller is also simulated as a solid boundary. Then the methods are applied in the cases where partial cavities and developed tip vortex cavities coexist. The predicted cavity patterns, the developed tip vortex trajectories, and the propeller-induced hull pressures are compared with those measured in the experiments.