Global cavitation and hydrodynamic characteristics of a composite propeller in non-uniform wake

The composite propeller has attracted much interest due to its excellent mechanical properties such as high specific stiffness and high specific strength, hence there is an increasing interest in utilizing the composite materials to improve the hydrodynamic and structural performance of marine propellers. The objective of this paper is to study the cavitation performance of composite propellers based on the unsteady simulation method considering the cavitation-composite structure interaction. The typical cavitation patterns around the composite propeller are studied, which include blade sheet cavitation and tip vortex cavitation. The unsteady flow characteristics of tip vortex cavitation and structural dynamic response of composite propeller are studied, and the mechanism of composite propeller for the cavitation suppression and efficiency improvement is revealed. The results show that compared with rigid propellers, composite propellers have smaller cavity volume and higher propulsion efficiency under the same conditions. The unsteady cavitating flow characteristics under non-uniform wake are periodic, and the phase lag of hydrodynamic coefficients of composite propeller can be observed compared with that of the rigid propeller. The bending-torsional coupling deformation of the composite propeller makes the pressure pulsation of the flow field gentler, which reduces the influence of the cavitation load on the composite propeller.