CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MARINE PROPELLERS HYDRODYNAMIC DESIGN

Abstract

The navigation in Amazon region is very important due to the length of navigable rivers and the lack of alternative road network, as well as being a form of transportation costless for the flow of agricultural and manufacturing production. This kind of transportation present social, economic and technological importance for this region. Thus, this work objective to develop a mathematical approach for the marine propellers design, using a formulation for chord and pitch angle optimization, taken into account the equations of mass, energy and momentum balance for the theoretical calculation of thrust and torque relationships on an annular control volume, ie, the mathematical model is based in the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. The proposed hydrodynamic model present low computational cost and it is easy to implement. The results are compared with classical Glauert's theory and the experimental data of the Wageningen B3-50 propeller, presenting good agreement.