Integrated lifting line/surface panel method for optimal propeller design with consideration of hub effect

An optimal marine propeller design method is proposed, which integrates the lifting line and surface panel method and is characterized by the use of the surface panel method to take the hub effect into consideration. By developing an integrated approach instead of an iterative method for the calculation of the interaction between the hub and the designed blades, the hub effects on the optimal circulation can be accounted for throughout the theoretical design procedure. This new integrated method provides a fast and accurate enough method to model the straight forward hub surface, in the optimal propeller design. A systematic design procedure from the basic design inputs to the blade geometry determination is performed and the designed propellers are validated by the surface panel method and the RANS method. The design and analysis cases are considered by different approaches with comparison and validation. And a comparative study including different hub geometries is also performed to reveal the mechanism of the hub effect on the distributions of the propeller optimal loads.