Numerical Prediction for the Hydrodynamic Performance of a Ferry Propeller

The Computational Fluid Dynamics（CFD） method is used in this paper to predict the hydrodynamic performance of a ferry propeller. Firstly， the numerical models and the methods' credibility are validated by calculating the thrust coefficient， torque coefficient， and efficiency of DTMB P5168. Specifically， the whole computational region is generated with Hexa-mesh， and three turbulence models are investigated respectively. The comparison between computational results and experimental data shows that the precision for the SST and RSM turbulence models are almost identical， yet the time cost with SST turbulence model is lower， and its error in the thrust coefficient， torque coefficient， and efficiency are 5.8%，1.7%， and 4.3%， respectively. For further validation， the proposed numerical method is applied to a ferry propeller； through the analysis of its grid dependency， scale effects， and the flow field，the method is seen to be reliable in estimating the hydrodynamic performance of the ferry propeller in open water.