The cyclic varying pitch propeller is a controllable pitch propeller that is able to change the pitch of the propeller blades individually during one revolution in order to compensate for the non-uniform wake field. By changing the pitch to compensate for the non-uniform wake field, the unsteady phenomena such as cavitation, vibration and noise can be reduced. This gives new possibilities when designing the propeller blades, which can result in a higher propeller efficiency. In order to make the blade design, the actuation mechanism and determing the optimum blade pitch trajectory, it is necessary to determine the hydrodynamic loads acting on the propeller blades due to the non-uniform wake field. An unsteady CFD simulation of the cyclic varying pitch propeller in a non-uniform wake field is computational expensive and is not suitable for determining the optimum pitch trajectory in an iterative manner. Hence, it is desired to have a less computational expensive method to calculate the optimum pitch trajectory. A simple method to characterize a propeller is to determine its open-water characteristics. It is therefore reasonable to try using the propellers open-water characteristics to determine the hydrodynamic loads in order to obtain a less computational expensive method. In this paper, the propellers open-water curves are determined for a range of pitch settings through steady state RANS CFD simulations. To avoid making an erroneous conclusion, the uncertainty of the simulation results are determined. The propellers open-water curves are used to evaluate the thrust and efficiency for the cyclic varying pitch propeller which are compared to the controllable pitch propeller.
In marine applications, a cyclic varying pitch (CVP) propeller is a propeller in which the propeller blade can be cyclic-pitched. This cyclic pitching of the propeller blades is used to adapt to the local flow conditions in the non-uniform wake field that the propeller operates in, behind the ship hull. This has the potential to improve the performance of the propulsion system relative to a propeller which has fixed pitch for each revolution. The potential performance improvements include increasing the propulsion efficiency and reducing the cavitation, pressure pulses, vibrations and noise problems. However, the CVP propeller is not on the market today, and several challenges have to be addressed before the CVP propeller may be realized. One of these challenges is how to design the individual cyclic pitch mechanism for the propeller. However, before the cyclic pitch mechanism can be designed, it is necessary to know the requirements for it, such as the required pitching power and torque. The focus of the current paper is therefore to present a model for the propeller, by which it is possible to determine the loads acting on the CVP propeller blades during the cyclic pitching, and hence the actuator force/torque and power requirements. To illustrate the usefulness of the model, an example is presented, in which the loads on a CVP propeller are determined, together with the requirements for the individual cyclic pitch mechanism. The efficiency results presented are, however, not representative of the efficiency improvement that may be obtained, as neither the propeller nor the pitch trajectory has been optimised. The results do, however, serve to show the benefit and validity of the model.
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