Improvement of Surface Ship Propeller Cavitation Performance Using Advanced Blade Sections

A propeller design procedure incorporating new propeller blade sections has been developed to improve propeller cavitation inception. Two dimensional foil design procedures of Shen and Eppler provide geometry for a specified blade pressure distribution. Advanced propeller lifting surface design procedures then generate propeller geometry. Panel method analysis verifies final design changes. Resulting propeller geometries produce a specified blade pressure distribution with improved blade surface cavitation inception. A series of new blade section model propeller s has been designed and tested for cavitation and powering performance. The new propellers show a 2-3 knot improvement in blade surface cavitation inception speed. The new section propeller s also show some Reynolds number effects on powering, requiring higher speed testing than conventional blade section propellers.