Modal analysis of propeller wakes under different loading conditions

Abstract

Propeller wakes under different loading conditions obtained by the improved delayed detached eddy simulation method were studied based on the flow decomposition technique. The sparsity-promoting dynamic mode decomposition was used to study the flow physics in the wake of a propeller, with particular emphasis placed on identifying the underlying temporal and spatial scales that play important roles in the onset of propeller wake instabilities. The morphology of flow structures of different modes selected by the sparsity-promoting algorithm at different frequencies characterizes the instability process of the wake system. It shows that the circumferential diffusion of tip vortex structures promotes the approaching of adjacent tip vortices, enhancing the interaction of the vortex pairs, which plays an important role in the instability triggering mechanism of the propeller wake, especially the mutual inductance between neighboring tip vortices. The present study further extends knowledge of propeller wake instability inception mechanisms under different loading conditions.