A new approach in blade shape adjustment in PBD-14 design mode

The purpose of this study is to develop a more efficient and robust algorithm for adjusting the blade shape as a part of a coupled lifting-surface design/analysis code for marine propulsors developed at MIT, known as PBD-14. The algorithm for adjusting the blade shape in the current version of PBD-14 works satisfactorily in most cases. However, with more complex schemes such as ducted propulsors and/or higher load distributions, the process has to be carefully monitored by the user and the blade surface can develop corrugations in the spanwise direction. A different approach investigated in this study is based on an idea of aligning the blade shape by tracing streamlines. In order to satisfy the kinematic boundary condition, the final blade shape has to exactly match the streamlines of the flow field in which the propeller blade operates. The algorithm that is developed traces streamlines by calculating the total velocity on a grid of points and then exactly fits the blade on this grid of points. Initial tests of this algorithm have demonstrated its robustness by producing accurate blade shapes both in uniform and in more complicated flow fields. Finally, propeller fabrication is investigated, and tolerance issues as well as propeller inspection methods, traditional and modem, are examined. A cost analysis is performed that investigates the economic impact of manufacturing an example propeller according to a certain tolerance system.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Ocean Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Chrisospathis, Aristomenis, 1969-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Justin E. Kerwin.

• Ocean Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8606

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8606