A methodology to predict the thrust-reduction

Ships are increasingly equipped with more thrusters, thanks to the growing interest in automation technologies in recent years. Considering that preserving the route or position of the ship requires more thrust power and operating a thruster in the wake of another thruster causes enormous thrust reduction, investigating the thruster-thruster interaction becomes critical in order to maximize power efficiency. This study provides a methodology which reduces the computational cost to estimate the thrust reduction of the successor thruster by dividing the computational domain by two appropriate domains. The Ka 4.70 propeller with an accelerating 19A duct is considered. Both the sliding interfaces and the moving reference frame method are used to obtain the force and momentum of the thrusters. The preliminary results showed that up to 90% of the thrust could be lost due to improper placement of the thrusters, especially without considering thruster-thruster interaction.