Journal of Computational Methods in Engineering

Journal of Computational Methods in Engineering

Numerical Simulation of the Flow on a flying boat Propeller in Different Working Conditions

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
محمدباقر مهکی 1
Mahdi Sahebi, 2
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Qom University of Technology, Qom, Iran
10.47176/jcme.45.1.1077
Abstract
The performance of a propeller, specifically its thrust and torque, critically affects the overall efficiency of propeller-driven vehicles. This study numerically investigates a flying boat propeller with a diameter of 2 m, operating at a rotational speed of 2200 rpm and an advance speed of 180 km/h. The three‑dimensional, compressible, turbulent airflow is modeled using the SST k‑ω turbulence scheme, and blade rotation is accounted for via the moving reference frame (MRF) approach. The effects of rotational speed, blade pitch angle, and vehicle advance speed on thrust and torque are quantitatively evaluated. ANSYS Fluent commercial code was utilized for performing numerical simulations. The CFD results showed a reasonable agreement with experimental results. Key results show that increasing the rotational speed from 2000 rpm to 2200 rpm raises the thrust by approximately 180\% and the torque by 67\%. A 2‑degree increase in the blade pitch angle yields respective increases of 61\%, 42\%, and 14\% in thrust, torque, and efficiency. In contrast, the advance speed has an inverse effect: at 210 km/h, thrust, torque, and efficiency drop to only 5\%, 43\%, and 13\% of their values at 150 km/h, respectively. These findings demonstrate the strong sensitivity of the propeller performance to the operational parameters, especially advance speed, and provide quantitative benchmarks for design applications in compressible flow regimes.
Keywords
Wing In Ground Effect
Propeller
Moving Reference Frame
Thrust
Propeller Torque
Subjects
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