Study on hydrodynamic performance of cycloidal propeller with flap at the trailing edge

Abstract In this paper, the hydrodynamic performance of cycloidal propeller with flap at the trailing edge are investigated by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method. Without losing the generality, the study is based on three-blade cycloidal propeller. The CFD model is first validated against experimental result in the literature. On this basis, the influence of flap on the hydrodynamics is investigated by enforcing three different flap motion patterns, which are anti-virtual camber motion, sinusoidal motion, and anti-virtual camber plus sinusoidal motion. The simulation results show that the anti-virtual camber and sinusoidal motions are effective to reduce the side thrust and increase the efficiency at high advance coefficient respectively. And these two effects can be achieved at the same time by the linear superposition of these two types of motions. The mechanisms of the flow with flaps and its influence on the hydrodynamic performance of the cycloidal propeller are analyzed.