A Propeller Design Method with a New Blade Section : Applied to Container Ships

A Propeller design method using the newly developed blade section(KH18), which behaves better cavitation characteristics, is presented. Experimental results for two-dimensional foil sections show that the lift-drag curve and the cavitation-free bucket diagram of the new blade section are wider comparing to those of the existion NACA sections. This characteristic of the new section is particularly important for marine propeller applications since angle of attack variation of the propeller blade operating behind a non-uniform ship's wake is relatively large. A lifting surface theory is used for the design of a propeller with the developed section for a 2700 TEU container ship. Since the most suitable chordwise loading shape is not known a priori, chordwise loading shape is chosen as a design parameter. Five propellers with different chordwise loading shapes and different foil sections are designed and tested in the towing tank and cavitation tunnel at KRISO. It is observed by a series of extensive model tsets that the propeller(KP197) having the chordwise loading shape, which has less leading edge loading at the inner radii and more leading edge loading at the outer radii of 0.7 radius, has higher propulsive efficiency and better cavitation characteristics. The KP197 propeller shows 1% higher efficiency, 30% cavitation volume reduction and 9% reduction of fluctuating pressure level comparing to the propeller with an NACA section. More appreciable efficiency gain for the new blade section propeller would be expected by reduction of expanded blade area considering the better cavitation characteristics of the new blade section.