Towards Fuel Consumption Reduction Based on the Optimum Contra-Rotating Propeller

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of selecting a contra-rotating propeller (CRP) for a bulk carrier at the engine operating point with minimum fuel consumption, as well as ensuring the safety of the propeller in terms of cavitation and noise. Using a developed optimization model, the geometry of a CRP was selected for different propeller diameters, the same propeller diameter as that of a fixed pitch propeller (FPP) installed on the bulk carrier, and at 90% of the FPP diameter. Additionally, each case was optimized with both no-cup and heavy-cup configurations. In general, the CRP showed better performance than the FPP in terms of efficiency, cavitation, and fuel economy. At the same time, the level of performance was increased when considering the CRP cupping percentage. It was concluded that the CRP can achieve a gain in fuel economy of up to 6.2% in a no-cup configuration when compared to an FPP, and up to 11.7% with a cupped configuration.