Propulsor Design Using Clebsch Formulation

A three dimensional inverse design method is presented for the design of marine propulsors. This method makes use of the Clebsch representation of the rotational part of the velocity field for modeling both the bound vorticity of blade surfaces and the free stream vortcity. The blade shape is determined by imposing the flow tangency condition for a given loading specification. This technique is demonstrated here for the design of a ducted pod propulsor operating in a uniform stream and a ducted propulsor mounted on the tail of an axisymmetric body operating in a shear onset flow. For the case of ducted propulsor design, both mixed and axial flow configurations are presented to demonstrate the use of mixed flow concept for cavitation performance improvement.