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Large eddy simulation of propeller wake instabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Praveen Kumar  and
Krishnan Mahesh
Praveen Kumar
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Krishnan Mahesh*
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: kmahesh@umn.edu
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Abstract

The wake of a five-bladed marine propeller at design operating condition is studied using large eddy simulation (LES). The mean loads and phase-averaged flow field show good agreement with experiments. Phase-averaged and azimuthal-averaged flow fields are analysed in detail to examine the mechanisms of wake instability. The propeller wake consisting of tip and hub vortices undergoes streamtube contraction, which is followed by the onset of instabilities as evident from the oscillations of the tip vortices. Simulation results reveal a mutual-induction mechanism of instability where, instead of the tip vortices interacting among themselves, they interact with the smaller vortices generated by the roll-up of the blade trailing edge wake in the near wake. It is argued that although the mutual-inductance mode is the dominant mode of instability in propellers, the actual mechanism depends on the propeller geometry and the operating conditions. The axial evolution of the propeller wake from near to far field is discussed. Once the propeller wake becomes unstable, the coherent vortical structures break up and evolve into the far wake, composed of a fluid mass swirling around an oscillating hub vortex. The hub vortex remains coherent over the length of the computational domain.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation Vortex Flows: Vortex interactions Wakes/Jets: Wakes
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 814 , 10 March 2017 , pp. 361 - 396
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Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 

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