Time-averaged velocity and turbulence intensity at the initial downstream flow from a six-bladed propeller

W.H. Lam, Desmond J. Robinson, Gerard A. Hamill, J.F. Zhao, M. Jia

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    11 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The current study investigated the time-averaged velocity and turbulence intensity at the initial downstream flow from a six-bladed ship propeller. The six-bladed propeller provided the rapid periodical pulses of thrust in one revolution due to the blades leading to a complex downstream jet. The six-bladed propeller is popular as a boat racing propeller, but the presentation of its flow structure was rarely found in the previous studies. In this study, the experiments were carried out in a water tank to measure the time-averaged velocity and turbulence intensity by using a Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA) system. The jet was produced by rotating the propeller at a constant speed powered by an electric motor. The maximum tangential and radial velocities of the six-bladed propeller were of 76% and 17% of the maximum axial velocity respectively. The study found that the six-bladed propeller has a lower tangential velocity, but a higher radial velocity with its own diffusing mechanism when comparing to the three-bladed propeller.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)85-93
    Number of pages8
    JournalOcean Engineering
    Volume51
    Issue numbernull
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 01 Sept 2012

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Ocean Engineering
    • Environmental Engineering

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Time-averaged velocity and turbulence intensity at the initial downstream flow from a six-bladed propeller'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this