Numerical approaches for hydroacoustic analysis of marine propellers

This paper is devoted to a theoretical and numerical hydroacoustic analysis of marine propellers. The use of the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation is addressed and compared with a Bernoulli-based methodology, typically used in the naval context. A computational tool based on a boundary element formulation for the velocity potential is used to determine the hydrodynamic loads on the propeller blades. Then, both the Bernoulli and the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equations are used to evaluate the pressure far field. The role played by the incompressibility assumption is treated from theoretical and computational points of view; thus, some other numerical issues, concerning the wake modeling effects and the alternative methodologies, are discussed in order to assess the superiority of the acoustic analogy approach and to support its use for naval applications.