Objectives  The propulsor is the source of propulsion during the ship's navigation, and its design is also a key part of the ship's design process. Due to the different working conditions, propulsors of ice-going ships differ greatly from propulsors of open water vessels in terms of load analysis and design. In order to provide a basis for the design of ice-going ship propulsor,

  Methods  this paper analyzes the special hydrodynamic characteristics, ice load and the cavitation performance.

  Results  Through analysis, it is found that when a ship sails in ice region, the presence of sea ice will cause the propeller to sustain more loads and easily cause cavitation of propeller at low speed, resulting in severe noise.

  Conclusions  The analysis shows that when designing ice-class propellers, special attention should be paid to the magnitude of ice load and the cavitation effect, and the construction of propellers with low temperature resisting materials such as copper alloy or austenitic steel should be considered.