Parametric Study of the Hydrodynamic Characteristics of the Pumpjet Propulsor for the SUBOFF Submarine

Abstract

Submarines with pumpjet propulsors have recently been used in many countries to improve their propulsion and noise performance. The pumpjet has the advantage of improving noise and cavitation performance by increasing the pressure inside the duct, and it has good efficiency at a low advance ratio. This study analyzed the propulsive performance of a pumpjet propulsor affixed to a SUBOFF submarine as a function of variations in the design parameters using computational fluid dynamics analysis. The incidence angle and camber of the duct and the pitch angle of the stator were selected as the design parameters. To investigate the propulsion performance as a function of the design parameter variations, each case’s thrust, torque, and efficiency were compared, and the velocity and pressure fields of each case were analyzed. In addition, the efficiency was analyzed using the non-dimensional mass flow rate and area ratio difference for each case. The duct incidence angle contributed most dominantly to the dimensionless flow rate and the difference in area ratio, and these two factors resulted in high efficiency at certain values. It is expected that further research will be conducted in the near future that takes into account cavitation inception speed and cavitation.