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Experimental and numerical investigation of the impacts of rotor tip-rake on excitation forces of pump-jet propulsors

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Abstract

The tip-clearance flow in a pump-jet propulsor exerts great impacts on the fluctuating pressures and resultant unsteady forces, which are important sources of structural vibrations and radiated noise underwater. The blade geometry close to the tip is an important factor determining the vortex strength in the tip-clearance flow. In the open-water condition, the effects of raking the rotor tips on the duct-surface fluctuating pressures and the resultant unsteady forces acting on different components of the propulsor are investigated via physical model experiments and the numerical solution of Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations coupled with the SST k - ω turbulence model. The measured and simulated results of hydrodynamic pressures are consistent to each other, and the simulated flows help better understand why the fluctuating pressures change with the tip geometry. The strong fluctuations of duct-surface pressures are caused by intensive tip separation vortices. The duct-surface pressure fluctuations are effectively reduced by using the rake distribution near the tip towards blade back side and, for the combination of the five-bladed rotor and the seven-bladed stator, the resultant unsteady horizontal (and vertical) forces acting on the duct and stator are also reduced; while increasing rake leads to negative effect on pressure fluctuations and unsteady horizontal (and vertical) forces acting on all the components of the propulsor.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. AF0100153/003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Marine Numerical Experiment Centre, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Xue-qin Ji, Chen-jun Yang & Xiao-qian Dong

  2. CSSC Shanghai Marine Energy Saving Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, 200011, China

    Xiao-song Zhang

  3. China Ship Scientific Research Center Shanghai Branch, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Xiao-song Zhang

Authors
  1. Xue-qin Ji
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  2. Xiao-song Zhang
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  3. Chen-jun Yang
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  4. Xiao-qian Dong
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chen-jun Yang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Chen-jun Yang is editorial board member for the Journal of Hydrodynamics and was not involved in the editorial review, or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that there are no other competing interests.

Ethical approval: This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent: Not applicable.

Additional information

Project supported by the National Key Project of China for Strengthening Fundamental Research (Grant No. 2019-JCJQ-ZD-016-00).

Biography: Xue-qin Ji (1995-), Female, Ph. D. Candidate

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Ji, Xq., Zhang, Xs., Yang, Cj. et al. Experimental and numerical investigation of the impacts of rotor tip-rake on excitation forces of pump-jet propulsors. J Hydrodyn 36, 142–157 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42241-024-0011-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42241-024-0011-0

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