A Practical Approach for Design of Marine Propellers with Systematic Propeller Series

Abstract

Although there have been important developments in marine propellers since their first use in 1850, the main concept has been conserved. Parallel to the developments in the computer technologies in the past 50 years, methods based on the circulation theory are often used for the design and analysis of propellers. Due to the ability to predict the propulsion performance with just a few design parameters, the use of systematic propeller series based on open water model experiments is still widespread. The design with standard propeller series is usually made with diagrams developed from model experiments. Reading errors during the use of these diagrams are inevitable. In the presented study a practical approach is developed for preventing reading errors and time loss during the design with standard propeller series. A practical approach based on empirical formulas for the design and performance prediction for four-bladed Wageningen B propeller series is presented, and design applications for three propellers with different loading conditions are realized. The results obtained from the presented method are compared with those of open water diagram data and a good agreement between the results is observed.