ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005
The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure
Sing-Kwan Lee
Research and Product Development, Technology
American Bureau of Shipping
Houston, USA
Presented at the ISOPE 2005 conference held in Seoul, Korea, June 19-24, 2005 and reprinted with the kind permission
of the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ABSTRACT
Cavitation tests have shown that propeller induced
cavitating pressure is sensitive to the inflow in front of the
propeller. It is well-known that this inflow is different from the
nominal wake in bare hull condition. Due to the interactions
among the nominal wake, propeller, and hull, the real flow to the
propeller behaves differently and affects the propeller
performance, blade cavity pattern, and fluctuating pressure
generated. In this study, comparisons between Euler and RANS
(Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) equation simulations are
performed to find out their differences on the predictions of
propeller blade cavitation and its induced hull pressure.
KEY WORDS: Propeller induced Hull pressure, Propeller/Hull
Interactions, RANS Equations, Chimera Method, Effective
Wake
INTRODUCTION
In propeller design, the real inflow, which is critical to the
propeller performance and blade cavitation, is usually
considered including three components, namely, nominal
velocity, propeller induced velocity and interaction velocity.
Early studies shown, for an axisymmetric body fully submerged
in water, the interaction velocity is mainly due to the nominal
wake and propeller interaction (Huang and Groves, 1980).
Based on that, a simplified approach using inviscid rotational
flow model (Euler equation simulation) can be adopted in
propeller/nominal wake interaction calculation by ignoring the
effect due to the presence of body (Choi, 2000). In industry, this
simplified approach even applies further to handle the surface
ship problem.
As known, with the presence of a propeller near hull
structure, the flow through the propeller plane is contracted and
accelerated through the interaction of the propeller induced
velocities and nominal wake under the effect of hull boundary.
Not only superposition of the nominal wake and the induced
velocity doesn’t accurately model the real flow in front of
propeller but even including the propeller/nominal wake
interaction is inadequate since the hull boundary effect still has
influence to the real flow passing through the propeller. This
propeller/hull interaction would become more and more critical
especially when the propeller tip clearance to hull becomes
smaller and smaller. To accurately handle this viscous effect
dominated flow, RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes)
simulation becomes essential
The interaction between the propeller and ship stern flow
has been the subject of many previous investigations. Stern et
al. (1988a) presented a viscous-flow method for the computation
of propeller-hull interaction in which the RANS method was
coupled with a propeller-performance program in an interactive
and iterative manner to predict the ship wake flow including the
propeller effects. Piquet et al. (1987), Yang et al. (1990) and
Dai et al. (1991) used the non-interactive calculation procedure
of Stern et al. (1988a) to account for the propeller effects with
prescribed body-force distributions. The interactive calculation
procedure was implemented in Stern et al. (1988b, 1991, 1994),
Zhang et al. (1991), and Weems et al. (1994) for the study of
combined ship wake and propeller flow. To further extend the
The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure
Hamn-Ching Chen
Department of Civil Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, USA
method to off-design conditions, Chen and Lee (2003a, 2003b)
coupled the chimera RANS method (Chen et al., 2002) with the
MPUF3A propeller analysis program of Lee and Kinnas (2001)
in an interactive and iterative manner for the simulation of
propeller-ship interactions. Calculations were performed and
validated for the Series 60, CB = 0.6 ship hull with the MAU
propeller (Toda et al., 1990) under various operations including
the ahead, backing, crash-astern, and turning conditions.
However, all studies aforementioned focused on propeller under
fully wetted condition.
In the present study, Chen and Lee’s method (2003a, 2003b)
is further applied to a cavitating propeller to investigate the
influence of propeller/hull interaction effect on propeller cavity
and its induced hull pressure. Simulations based on Euler
equation approach (Choi and Kinnas, 1999) are also carried out
to obtain a base reference to compare the cavitating pressures on
hull with and without propeller/hull interaction effect.
Furthermore, to study the influence of scale effect on propeller
induced hull pressure, a RANS simulation with high Reynolds
number (6.62 × 108) is performed to provide a full scale inflow
condition to propeller cavitation analysis and its induced hull
pressure calculation.
NUMERICAL METHOD
Chimera RANS Method
In the present RANS / MPUF3A coupling approach, the
chimera RANS method of Chen and Chen (1998), Chen and Liu
(1999) and Chen et al. (2000, 2002) was used to solve the ship
boundary layer and wake flows while the MPUF3A program
was used to solve for the propeller blade loading distributions.
Several interactive couplings of the RANS and MPUF3A codes
were performed to capture the propeller-hull interactions. The
present RANS method solves the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-
Stokes equations for incompressible flow in general curvilinear
coordinates (ξ i , t ) :
U ,ii = 0 (1)
∂U i 1 jk i
+ U jU ,ij + u i u j , j = f i − g ij p, j − g U , jk
∂t Re (2)
where Ui and ui represent the mean and fluctuating velocity
components, and gij is the conjugate metric tensor. t is time p is
pressure, f i are the body forces, and Re = UoL/ν is the Reynolds
number based on a characteristic length L, a reference velocity
Uo, and the kinematic viscosity ν. Equations (1) and (2)
represent the continuity and mean momentum equations,
respectively. The equations are written in tensor notation with
the subscripts, ,j and ,jk, represent the covariant derivatives. In
the present study, the two-layer turbulence model of Chen and
Patel (1988) is employed to provide closure for the Reynolds
stress tensor u i u j .
The RANS equations have been employed in conjunction
with a chimera domain decomposition technique for detailed
resolution of the turbulent boundary layers, wakes, and free
surface waves around complex three-dimensional bodies. The
method solves the mean flow and turbulence quantities on
embedded, overlapped, or matched multiblock grids. Within
each computational block, the finite-analytic method of Chen,
25
 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005
Patel and Ju (1990) is employed to solve the RANS equations in
a general, curvilinear, body-fitted coordinate system. The
overall numerical solution is completed by the hybrid
PISO/SIMPLER pressure solver of Chen and Korpus (1993)
which satisfies the equation of continuity at each time step.
The free surface boundary conditions for viscous flow
consist of one kinematic condition and three dynamic
conditions. The kinematic condition ensures that the free
surface fluid particles always stay on the free surface:
ηt + Uη x + Vη y − W = 0 on z = η (3)
where η is the wave elevation and (U,V,W) are the mean
velocity components on the free surface. The dynamic
conditions represent the continuity of stresses on the free
surface. When the surface tension and free surface turbulence
are neglected, the dynamic boundary conditions reduce to zero
velocity gradient and constant total pressure on the free surface.
A more detailed description of the chimera RANS/free-surface
method was given in Chen and Chen (1998) and Chen et al.
(2000).
Vortex-Lattice Method
Propeller flow analysis is performed by Vortex-Lattice
method based program MPUF3A. The program was originally
developed at MIT (Kerwin and Lee, 1978; Greeley and Kerwin,
1982) and further enhanced at University of Texas (Lee and
Kinnas, 2001) for analyses of propellers with sheet cavitation.
The MPUF3A analysis is formulated in terms of the rotating
coordinate system, (x,y,z), fixed to the blades (Figure 1). Blade
geometry is defined first from a midchord line based on the
radial distribution of skew angle, θs(r) and total rake, iT(r).
Blade chord length, c(r), is then extended from this midchord
line half forward and half backward along the pitch helix with
pitch angle, φ(r), on the surface of a cylinder of radius r.
Finally, the blade section shape is defined by camber, f(r,s) and
thickness t(r,s). Between them, camber is the locus of the mid-
points between the upper and lower blade section surfaces and
thickness is the distance between the upper and lower blade
section surfaces.
Fig. 1 Coordinate system used in MPUF3A
The calculation procedure in MPUF3A employs a
vortex/source lattice method by which the flow field around a
propeller is modeled by placing discrete vortices and sources on
the blade mean camber surface and its trailing wake. Strengths
of these vortices and sources are determined based on the
kinematic and dynamic boundary conditions. Kinematic
boundary condition requires the total velocity (inflow velocity
plus propeller induced velocity) on blade surface to be tangent to
the mean camber surface and dynamic boundary condition
forces the pressure on the cavity surface to be equal to the cavity
pressure. Once these strengths are know, propeller induced
26 The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure
potential can be calculated. Accordingly, flow field velocity and
pressure can be obtained.
Coupling Procedure
In general, propeller theories assume the flow field to be
irrotational and unbounded; however, as the propeller is located
at stern areas, these assumptions are rarely satisfied. The total
flow field is not simply the sum of the nominal wake and the
propeller induced velocities. In practice a very complicated
interaction takes place among the nominal wake, ship hull, and
propeller. Usually, the total velocity can be decomposed into
nominal velocity, interactive velocity (due to interaction
between nominal velocity, hull body and propeller) and
propeller-induced velocity. To correctly predict the propeller
performance, effective velocity, which is the sum of nominal
wake and interactive velocity (or total velocity subtracted by
propeller induced velocity), should be used as the propeller
inflow. During the iterative calculations between RANS and
MPUF3A, the total velocity is calculated based on chimera
RANS method and this total velocity is subtracted by propeller
induced velocity based on the vortex/source strengths from
MPUF3A to obtain the effective velocity. The final effective
wake is attained when the propeller thrust and torque
coefficients were converged within a specific tolerance. In
RANS calculation, the propeller is represented by body-forces
acting on the computational elements swept by the propeller
blades. The influence of the propeller is incorporated into the
RANS code by the addition of body-force terms in the source
functions of the momentum equations (2). For simplicity, we
will consider only the steady-state propeller body-forces by
averaging the unsteady blade-to-blade loading distributions in
the circumferential direction. This enables us to obtain the time-
averaged thrust and torque coefficients effectively without
complete RANS / MPUF3A coupling calculations at every time
step.
The overall RANS / MPUF3A coupling procedure is
summarized in the following:
1. Compute the steady state RANS solution without the
propeller.
2. Interpolate the RANS velocity field to obtain the inflow
at the propeller plane (i.e., nominal wake).
3. Compute the propeller normal forces, thrust coefficient,
and torque coefficient by MPUF3A using the nominal
wake.
4. Interpolate the body-forces to RANS grids.
5. Recalculate the RANS solution using the new body-
forces.
6. Calculate the new inflow to the propeller based on the
RANS velocity field and update the effective wake.
7. Update the propeller normal forces, thrust coefficient,
and torque coefficient by MUF3A using the new
effective wake.
8. Repeat steps 4 thru 7 until the thrust and torque
coefficients converge to a specific tolerance.
Euler Equation Solver
An Euler equation solver developed by Choi and Kinnas
(1999) specifically for propeller flow simulation is used for
propeller/nominal wake interaction simulation. In the program,
numerical method for solving the Euler equation is based on
Finite Volume Method. The pressure field is solved by the
artificial compressibility method (Chorin 1967). For time
domain simulation, a three dimensional version of Ni’s Lax-
Wendroff method (Ni, 1982) is applied for time discretization.
During the calculations, the time step size is automatically
determined to satisfy the CFL condition (Courant et al, 1967).
For numerical stability, second and fourth order artificial
viscosity are used. Similar to RANS/MPUF3A coupling, the
Euler solver is interactively coupled with MPUF3A propeller
program to perform iterative calculations and the influence of
the propeller is modeled as a body force in the Euler equation
solver.
 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005

Propeller Induced Hull Pressure

The calculations of the propeller generated pressure
fluctuations include the considerations of the ship hull, propeller
and the water surface. In modeling the water free surface, as
propeller blade rate excitation frequencies are usually in very
high frequency region (Breslin et al. 1982), the high frequency
free surface, which requires the perturbation velocity potential
should be zero, is used. For that, a negative hull image to the
water plane is used, and the influence of the propeller on the hull
surface should include the negative image of that propeller.
Therefore, if the propeller induced potential is defined as φ pr ,
the integral equation for dipole strength µ on hull surface panels
can be written as

1 ∂ 1 1
0=
4π ∫∫ µ (Q) ∂n
S Q
( −
R ( P, Q ) R ( P, Q ' )
)dS + φ pr ( P, q) − φ pr ( P, q' )
Fig. 3 Numerical grids used in chimera RANS calculation
where P represents a field point on the hull surface, and Q, Q’
represent points on the hull surface and on the image hull
surface, q and q’ represent points on the propeller and on its
image as shown in Figure 2.

Fig. 2 Images method used in propeller induced pressure

calculation
Fig. 4 Perspective view of numerical grids including keel
By solving the pervious integral equation, velocity potential can plane grid block for branch cut
be obtained. The pressure distribution on the hull surface can be
thus calculated by Bernoulli’s equation. Calculations of In propeller cavitation flow analysis, 20 × 18 panels are used
propeller induced hull pressure are based on HULL Field Point on each propeller blade in MPUF3A calculation. For propeller
Potential Program (Sun et al. 2004) developed in University of induced hull pressure calculation, totally 300 panels are
Texas. distributed on the hull around stern area. Only port side panels
are needed in HULL Field Point Potential Program for hull
pressure calculation. As propeller cavitating pressure decays
COMPUTATIONAL GRIDS very fast from the propeller location, hull pressure
computational domain doesn’t need to cover the hull ship. In
In the present study, a series-60, CB = 0.60 ship hull is used our calculation, around four propeller diameters from the
along with a MAU propeller (Toda et al., 1990) for propeller is found to be enough to capture all the hull pressure
propeller/hull interaction calculation. For chimera RANS generated by propeller cavitation (Figure 5).
calculation, a 122 × 35 × 31 O-type numerical grid (block 1)
was used around the ship hull to provide detailed resolution of
the turbulent boundary layer and wake flows generated by the
ship motion. Since the ship keel plane is a branch cut in the ship
grid, a small 61 × 35 × 3 (block 2) was constructed around the
keel plane so that the solution on the branch cut can be obtained
directly from the RANS calculations. Both grid blocks 1 and 2
were embedded in a 121 × 81 × 31 rectangular grid (block 3)
representing the ambient water. Furthermore, a 21 × 31 × 62
cylindrical grid (block 4) was generated behind the ship stern
extending from Xp/R = −0.35 to Xp/R = 3 around the propeller,
where R is the propeller radius and Xp is the longitudinal
distance measuring from the origin of the propeller disk. The
cylindrical grid is completely embedded in the ship grid (block
1) to provide more accurate resolution of the inflow to the
propeller as well as the wake flow induced by the propeller
thrust and torque. Figure 3 and 4 show the details of these
Fig. 5 Panels used on propeller blades and ship hull surface
numerical grids.

The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure 27

 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005

In Euler/MPUF3A coupled calculation, as hull-interaction
effect is excluded in the simulation, ship hull modeling does not
need to include. Only a 61× 51 × 61 cylindrical grid block is
used in the calculation to take into account the nominal
wake/propeller interaction effect. This cylindrical grid covers a
computational domain from one propeller diameter upstream to
one and half diameter down stream.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Before presenting the current calculation results for
cavitating propeller cases, the pervious studies (Chen and Lee,
2003a; Lee and Chen, 2003) for fully wetted propellers are
briefly summarized first to provide a general picture of the
performance of the chimera RANS/MPUF3A coupled method.
In Lee and Chen’s study (2003), a contra-rotating propeller,
CR404 system, was used to validate the RANS/MPUF3A
computational capability in handling the mutual interaction
effect between a pair of opposite rotating propellers. In their
calculations, the thrust coefficients KT for fore and aft propeller
are 0.1445 and 0.1607, respectively. In comparison to Miller’s
measurement data (1976) with KT =0.13 for fore propeller and
KT =0.16 for aft-propeller, the RANS/MPUF3A numerical
simulations have 11% difference for fore propeller and 0.4%
difference for aft-propeller. For torque coefficients KQ, the
difference between calculation and measurement are 6.7% for
fore propeller and 0.9% for aft-propeller.
In propeller/hull interaction for a fully wetted MAU
propeller and the series 60 ship hull, Lee and Chen’s
calculations (2003) shows only 3.4% difference for KT and 1.5%
difference for KQ in comparison to Toda et al’s measurement
(1992).
cavitation discussion, the cavitation is very minor for the current
cavitation number σ = 6.92.
To have more insight about the stern flow and propeller/hull
interaction, nominal and effective wake fields are plotted in
Figures 6~8. Figure 6 is plotted for axial velocity under bare
hull condition. As shown in the figure, the viscous boundary
layer occupies almost all the propeller region. Also shown in
Figure 8 for the flow slightly after the propeller disk location,
the thick boundary layer can be observed for this series 60 ship
hull. This indicates the propeller is working in a viscous
dominated area and its blades are sweeping inside the thick
boundary layer. For this case, it is expected there is strong
propeller/hull interaction effect on propeller cavitation. This
will become clear when later comparisons between
Euler/MPUF3A and RANS/MPUF3A are performed.
As expected, the nominal wake is significantly changed
when propeller is taken into action in stern area. Figure 7
shows the axial velocity contours of the propeller induced
effective wake. Unlike the usual meaning used in propeller flow
description, the term ‘effective wake’ used here refers to flow
wake including propeller induced velocity. As seen in Figure 7,
propeller thrust creates strong axial flow accelerations behind
the propeller. Also, due to the action of propeller torque flows
behind propeller show strong swirl as seen in Figure 9. From
the axial velocity contour plotted in the circular disks in Figure 8
and 9, the typical thick boundary layer flow pattern of nominal
wake is destroyed by propeller and the mean effective wake
turns out to be an approximately axisymmetric flow. However,
at 12 o’clock position of the disk shown in Figure 9 a small
region of boundary layer still can be observed.

Nominal and Effective Wake

For current study, unlike the pervious fully wetted propeller
studies, cavitation number used in calculation is reduced to
allow the blade sheet cavitation occurs. The details of the
parameters used for the current and pervious studies are listed as
follows:

Fully wetted propeller Cavitating

(Lee and Chen, 2003) propeller
Froude no. Fr 0.16 0.16
Reynolds no. Re 3.94 × 106 3.94 × 106
Advanced coeff. J 0.88 0.88
Cavitation no. σ 155.65 6.92

Table 1 Parameters used in chimera RANS/MPUF3A

calculations
Fig. 6 Axial velocity contours of nominal wake
In table 1, the parameters used for fully wetted propeller
case are obtained based on the operating conditions of Toda et
al’s experiments (1990, 1992). The reduction of the cavitation
number for the current cavitating propeller case is determined
based on a full scale ship with 121.92 m length (Table 1 in Toda
et al, 1992).
The calculated KT and KQ for fully wetted and cavitating
cases are given in table 2 as follows:

Experiment Calculation Calculation

(fully wetted (fully wetted (cavitating condition)
condition) condition)
KT 0.2340 0.2420 0.2401
KQ 0.0411 0.0405 0.0400

Table 2 Comparison of KT and KQ for fully wetted and

cavitating propellers

As seen in the table, due to the blade cavitation the

calculated thrust for current study condition is reduced in
comparison to the pervious fully wetted propeller. The thrust Fig. 7 Axial velocity contours of effective wake
reduction is slight; as will be shown later in propeller blade

28 The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure

 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005
Fig. 8 Flow velocities after propeller disk location for
nominal wake
Fig. 9 Flow velocities after propeller disk location for
effective wake
Blade Cavitation
In addition to RANS/MPUF3A calculation, effective wake
simulations based on Euler/MPUF3A coupled method (Choi and
Kinnas, 1999) are also performed. Unlike the RANS/MPUF3A
calculations, propeller/hull interaction effect is excluded in
Euler/MPUF3A method. Only the nominal wake and propeller
interaction is considered in the method. According to Choi and
Kinnas (1999), the basic assumption of this approach is that the
viscosity plays a major role in developing the nominal wake, but
it only plays a minor role in the interaction between the
rotational inflow and the propeller action. Therefore, the major
interaction between the nominal wake and propeller can be
modeled by Euler equations.
The computational results of propeller induced flow field are
plotted in Figure 10 for axial velocity contours at vertical plane
passing 6 and 12 o’clock positions. For pressure contours, it is
plotted in Figure 11. As expected, for this study case since the
propeller/hull interaction is very strong, the discrepancy between
RANS/MPUF3A and Euler/MPUF3A results is quite apparent.
In Euler/MPUF3A calculation, it is also found that thrust and
torque are about 11% higher than RANS/MPUF3A results.
Although compared to RANS/MPU3A calculation, total blade
cavitation volume from Euler/MPUF3A computation is smaller
(see Figure 12 cavity volume plot), the higher thrust and torque
obtained in Euler/MPUF3A are not caused by the cavitation
thrust reduction but mainly due to the difference of the inflow
velocity from propeller/hull interaction effect which is missing
The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure
in Euler/MPUF3A method. This is because by comparing the
fully wetted KT and KQ values with the Euler/MPUF3A results,
the Euler/MPUF3A calculated KT and KQ are still higher than
the fully wetted KT and KQ values.
Fig. 10 Axial velocity contours based on Euler/MPUF3A
calculation
Fig. 11 Pressure contours from Euler/MPUF3A calculation
From the blade cavity volume plot shown in Figure 12, it is
found the maximum cavity occurs at 12 and 6 o’clock positions
o
(0 blade position in Figure 12 corresponding to 12 o’clock
position and 180o corresponding to 6 o’clock position). This
result coincides with the fact that due to the blockage of the ship
body, wake defect occurs at vertical center of the propeller disk.
When a blade sweeps to the wake defect area, blade sections are
subjected to higher angle of attack which causes more pressure
drop on blade suction side and thus creates more blade cavities.
Also, due to the high velocity gradient at the vertical centerline
of propeller disk, cavities generated near the disk centerline
change their volumes rapidly. As seen in Figure 12, this
cavitation feature is captured in our RANS/MPUF3A
simulation. For Euler/MPUF3A simulation, since body hull is
excluded when performing nominal wake/propeller interaction
calculation, hull body blockage effect is not included to affect
the inflow towards to propeller which the wake defect at the disk
centerline should somewhat be maintained. It is believed that
the significant cavity volume drop around 12 o’clock position
(0o blade position) obtained from Euler/MPUF3A calculation is
mainly due to the missing of the ship hull blockage effect. For
the cavity volume at 6 o’clock position, Euler/MPUF3A
calculated cavity volume is slightly higher than the
RANS/MPUF3A result. This small change is mainly attributed
to the differences of convention effects predicted between
Euler/MPUF3A and RANS/MPUF3A calculations as at that
position (6 o’clock) the ship hull blockage should be minor.
29
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Fig. 14 1st blade rate propeller induced hull pressure based on

Euler/MPUF3A calculated blade cavity

Fig. 12 Cavity volume plot for RANS/MPUF3A and

Euler/MPUF3A calculation

For completeness, blade cavity patterns around 12 o’clock

and 6 o’clock positions based on RANS/MPUF3A and
Euler/MPUF3A simulations are also plotted in Figure 13. As
mentioned earlier, for the current cavitaion number (σ =6.92),
blade cavitation is very minor.

Fig. 15 1st blade rate propeller induced hull pressure based on

RANS/MPUF3A calculated blade cavity

For this right hand propeller, the calculated starboard

pressures are higher than the pressures in port side. This is
usually observed in model testing results for right hand
propeller. For the sake of briefness, only starboard pressure
contours are plotted here. As usual, it is found propeller
induced hull pressure affects very local stern region. In the
calculated results, it is found that the local maximum pressures
occur near top-dead-center and keel end areas. This coincides
with the cavity histories obtained in Euler/MPUF3A and
RANS/MPUF3A calculations (Figure 12), which show the
maximum cavity volumes occur at 12 and 6 o’clock positions.

Fig. 13 Blade cavity pattern at 12 and 6 o’clock positions

based on RANS/MPUF3A and Euler/MPUF3A
calculations

Propeller Induced Hull Pressure

Propeller induced hull pressure are calculated using HULL
Field Point Potential Program (HULLFPP, Sun et al, 2004).
Both Euler/MPUF3A and RANS/MPUF3A calculated blade
cavities have been used as input excitation sources in HULLFPP
for hull pressure calculations. The first blade rate hull pressure
contours of them are plotted in Figure 14 and 15.

Fig. 16 Maximum starboard pressures near propeller top-

dead-center

30 The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure

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the hull pressure for the first three blade rate frequencies are
summarized in Table 3 for model and full scale conditions. The
reductions of the vertical forces due to the scale effect are about
25% for first and second blade rate frequency and 16% for the
third blade rate frequency.

1st blade rate 2nd blade rate 3rd blade rate

Model Full Model Full Model Full
Fy/ρn2D4 0.04811 0.03651 0.03748 0.02812 0.00933 0.00792

Table 3 Total vertical forces due to propeller induced pressure

Fig. 17 Maximum starboard pressures near keel end

To have more comprehensive comparison between

Euler/MPUF3A and RANS/MPUF3A results, hull pressures up
to the third blade rate mode are plotted in Figure 16 and 17 for
near propeller top-dead-center and keel end locations at
starboard side. In the figures, Kp is pressure amplitude
coefficient defined as P/ρn2D2, where ρ is fluid density; n is
propeller rps; and D is diameter. For this weak cavitating
propeller, the hull pressure is dominated by the lowest blade rate
pressure and decays rapidly at higher blade rate modes. For hull
pressure near top-dead-center location (Figure 16), as cavity
volume in Euler/MPUF3A simulation is significantly reduced
compared to the RANS/MPUF3A results (see Figure 12), the
hull pressure from Euler/MPUF3A simulation also reduces
significantly. As discussed earlier, this is due to the absence of
propeller/hull interaction effect. However, at keel end area the
hull pressures predicted by Euler/MPUF3A and Fig. 18 Nominal wake predicted by RANS simulation for
RANS/MPUF3A methods are close each other (Figure 17). It is model scale
believed that propeller/hull interaction effect is weak near that
more opened area.

Scale Effect
To investigate scale effect on propeller induced hull pressure
prediction, a full scale simulation based on high Reynolds
number Re = 6.62 × 108 is performed. The nominal wakes
(axial velocity contour) for model and full scale are plotted at
propeller disk location in Figure 18 and 19. Due to the high
Reynolds number effect, the full scale nominal wake shows
much thinner boundary layer compared to the model scale wake.
This improves the inflow condition to propeller cavitation
problem as the wake defect region becomes to be narrowed
down. In this case, instead of a large V-type wake defect region
in the model nominal wake (Figure 18), the full scale wake
defect region shrinks much closer to the vertical centerline of the
propeller disk (Figure 19). To indicate this wake improvement
and its effect on propeller cavitation, the cavity volumes based
on model and full scale RANS/MPUF3A computations are
plotted (Figure 20). As seen, compared to model scale
condition, cavity volume caused by full scale propeller/hull
interaction has smaller amount as well as shorter period when
blades cross the top-dead-center position (blade position 0o in
Figure 20 refers to 12 o’clock position of propeller disk).
As before, the first blade rate propeller induced hull Fig. 19 Nominal wake predicted by RANS simulation for full
pressure on starboard side is plotted as shown in Figure 21. scale
Except the pressure values are reduced in full scale condition,
hull pressure pattern of full scale calculation is almost identical
with the model scale calculation (Figure 15). To have a detailed
comparison of the scale effect on propeller induced hull
pressure, blade rate hull pressures at top-dead-center and keel
end locations are presented in Figure 22 and 23. As seen in the
figures, scale effect looks to have more influence on the low
blade rate pressure than high blade rate pressure in this series 60
ship-MAU propeller case. Total vertical forces by integrating

The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure 31

 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005

Fig. 20 Cavity volume for model and full scale conditions

Fig. 23 Maximum pressure near keel end

CONCLUSIONS

The chimera RANS/MPUF3A coupled method has been

applied to a series 60 ship with a MAU propeller case to study
the propeller/hull interaction effect on propeller induced hull
pressure problem. To investigate the absence of this
propeller/hull interaction effect, nominal wake/propeller
interaction calculation based on Euler/MPUF3A coupled
calculation has also been preformed to obtain a baseline solution
for comparison. It is found that since the propeller/hull
interaction is strong in this case, the discrepancy between
RANS/MPUF3A and Euler/MPUF3A results is large. The
propeller cavity volume and its induced hull pressure at top-
dead-center area are found to be significantly reduced in
Fig. 21 1st blade rate propeller induced hull pressure for full Euler/MPUF3A calculation. It is believed that the under-
scale condition predictions of blade cavity and hull pressure are mainly due to
the absence of propeller/hull interaction effect in
Euler/MPUF3A calculation.
To study the scale effect on propeller induced hull pressure,
a full scale RANS/MPUF3A simulation has been carried out. It
is found that due to the improvement of the inflow, blade cavity
and hull pressure are reduced in full scale case. About 25%
reduction in vertical forces for the first and second blade rate
frequencies on full scale condition are obtained in the simulation
results.

Fig. 22 Maximum pressure near propeller top-dead-center

32 The Influence of Propeller/Hull Interaction on Propeller Induced Cavitating Pressure

 ABS TECHNICAL PAPERS 2005
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