An efficient coupling algorithm of fluid structure interaction for marine propeller flow

Abstract

An efficient coupling algorithm of fluid structure interaction for propeller flow has been proposed in this paper. Inner iterations for the flow analysis in the existing fluid structure coupling method were not needed any more while the flow, vibration of the propeller and the flow mesh deformation were solved using iterations called single-loop iteration to reduce the computing time. Fluid structure coupled computations were performed for a propeller blade. Results show that the vibration of the rotating blade is excited by its hydrodynamic force and the vibration of the 1st mode is the dominant. The vibration of the blade attenuates versus time and the blade finally stabilizes at the equilibrium position. The computing time is reduced by 88.4 % using the present algorithm in this paper compared with the existing fluid structure coupling method.