A numerical investigation into the influence of bionic blade sections on the hydrodynamic performance of marine propellers

The hydrodynamic performance of marine propellers directly determines the sailing speed and operating cost of the ship. Therefore, improving the efficiency of the marine propeller under different working conditions is a research subject with significant concern in the shipping industry. In this paper, the MAU 5-80 propeller was used as the prototype propeller, and the profile of the blade section was modified to investigate the effect of bionic blade sections on the hydrodynamic performance of the marine propeller. Based on the chordwise features of accipiter nisus wing, four bionic propellers with different blade section profiles were designed by adjusting the value of the span parameters. The open water characteristics, pressure distribution and cavitation morphology were analyzed with the STAR CCM+ software. The numerical results show that comparing at the same thrust loading coefficients, the efficiency of the four bionic propellers under heavy load conditions is higher than that of the prototype propeller. At low advance speed, reducing the chordwise coordinate value of the bionic blade section thickest point can increase the efficiency of the marine propeller by 5.41%. At medium advance speed, decreasing the bionic blade section thickness can suppress sheet cavitation development, and the reduction of cavitation area can reach 53.79%.