COMPARATIVE STUDY ON SURFACE PANEL METHOD FOR THE HYDRODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF HYBRID CONTRA-ROTATING SHAFT POD PROPULSOR

The present numerical study for the performance analysis of HCRSP (hybrid contra-rotating shaft pod) propulsor is based on the viscous flow method due to the structure complexity and the lacking of effectively potential flow method. In order to developing an effcient numerical method for the performance analysis of HCRSP propulsor, the HCRSP propulsor was divided into two parts, a single forward propeller and an aft podded propulsor. Then an iterative surface panel method was presented based on the single propeller surface panel method and podded propulsor integral panel method. The geometry characteristic and panel singularity strength of HCRSP propulsor were then analyzed, and an integral panel method was presented to treat HCRSP propulsor as a unit. The control equations of the integral panel method were derived in detail, and numerical solution program was developed. Based on these studies, the open water performance of an HCRSP propulsor was analyzed by iterative panel method and integral panel method. Numerical results were compared with experimental data and show that the relative result error of the two surface panel method are all within 5%, but the calculation time of integral panel method is about two thirds of that of iterative method. The integral panel method is more suitable in the design of HCRSP propulsor due to its calculation without iterative process. In the last, the error sources of integral panel method were discussed.