Hydro-elastic analysis of a propeller using CFD and FEM co-simulation

This paper presents a two-way Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) co-simulation of a marine propeller under operational loading. The case of study was the quasi-static elastic response of Marintek propeller P1374 in a steady flow condition. A two-way FSI co-simulation with the Fluent CFD-code and the Abaqus structural FE-code utilizing MpCCI interface was applied successfully. The so-called weak coupling was used, which means that each problem is solved separately and during each time step some variables are exchanged and inserted into the equations of the other problem. The results were compared with experimental data, which had been published earlier.
Agreement between calculated and measured thrust and torque coefficients was good. The order of magnitude of blade displacements corresponded to the measured ones. However, the simulated twist of the blade was smaller than the measured one. Also the simulated modifications to the performance characteristics were smaller than the measured ones. One possible reason for this can be the uncertainties in material properties of the blade. The measured propeller had been 3D printed in plastic, which may have impact on the material properties.