Cavitation analyses of dtmb 4119 propeller with lsm and urans approach

Cavitation is a very important physical phenomenon to be investigated for hydrodynamic performance of marine propellers. This paper focuses on the numerical analysis of a cavitating propeller (DTMB 4119) in open water conditions. The flow around the propeller has been simulated for different cavitation numbers with both a potential based code and unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) solver. The RANS solver is based on finite volume method while the potential code is using the lifting surface method. The Lifting Surface Method (LSM) models the three-dimensional unsteady cavitating flow around a propeller by representing the blade and wake as a discrete set of vortices and sources. For RANS analyses, the flow is considered as 3-D, fully turbulent, incompressible. Cavitation phenomenon has been modeled by using Volume of Fluid (VOF) technique to represent the two phases of liquid and vapor. Cavitation effect on the hydrodynamic performance of marine propeller has been investigated.