A CFD RESEARCH ON THE EFFECT OF PRE-SWIRL STATOR BLADES NUMBER ON A PUMPJET PROPULSOR

In this paper, effect of different pre-swirl stator number on open water performance of a pumpjet propulsor was studied. The pumpjet propulsor consists of shaft system, pre-swirl stator, rotor and duct. The numerical simulations were based on HUST-Ship, a series of inhouse codes, solving the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation. The computational region was discretized by structured grids and SST k-w turbulence equations was discretized by finite difference method. The performances of rotor, pre-swirl stator and duct were monitored separately in order to understand the effect in the thrust and the torque. It was found that with the increase of the number of pre-swirl stator blades, the thrust produced by rotor blades increased. However, the number ofpre-swirl stator blades influences the thrust of stator, and may have negative effect on the total thrust. In the meantime, thrust of duct also has a little increase. With the increase of the number of preswirl stator blades, the propulsion efficiency increases first and then decreases.