Numerical analysis of hydrodynamic propeller performance of LNG carrier in open water

Abstract

Marine propeller blade geometries, especially LNG carriers, are very complicated and determining the hydrodynamic performance of these propellers using experimental work is very expensive, time consuming and has many difficulties in calibration of marine laboratory facilities. This paper presents the assessment on the effect of turbulent model and mesh density on propeller hydrodynamic parameters. Besides that, this paper focuses on the LNG carrier Tanaga class propeller hydrodynamic performance coefficients such as Kt, Kq and η, with respect to the different advance coefficient (j). Finally, the results from numerical simulation that were calculated based on RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier Stocks) equations, were compared with existing experimental results, followed by analysis and discussion sections. As a result the maximum hydrodynamic propeller efficiency occurred when j=0.84