Boundary Element Method Applied to Added Mass Coefficient Calculation of the Skewed Marine Propellers

The paper mainly aims to study computation of added mass coefficients for marine propellers. A three-dimensional boundary element method (BEM) is developed to predict the propeller added mass and moment of inertia coefficients. Actually, only few experimental data sets are available as the validation reference. Here the method is validated with experimental measurements of the B-series marine propeller. The behavior of the added mass coefficients predicted based on variation of geometric and flow parameters of the propeller is calculated and analyzed. BEM is more accurate in obtaining added mass coefficients than other fast numerical methods. All added mass coefficients are nondimensionalized by fluid density, propeller diameter, and rotational velocity. The obtained results reveal that the diameter, expanded area ratio, and thickness have dominant influence on the increase of the added mass coefficients.