Results from the Wageningen 2007 Workshop on Propeller Open Water Calculations Including Cavitation

Propeller cavitation is still mainly explored by testing and only to a small extent within the computational framework of RANS or Euler solvers. Contrary to potential flow methods, the latter approaches in principle allow resolving re-entrant jets and the shedding of cavities. At a workshop held within the VIRTUE project in 2007, propeller flow under non-cavitating and cavitating conditions was predicted for homogeneous inflow applying 9 different viscous codes. Various solutions for the propeller grid were presented. A comparative analysis of the results was performed and revealed that the ability to predict the fully wetted flow was well covered by all participants. A common visualization of results was carried out on the basis of field data that were transmitted by the participants in either TECPLOTTM or FIELDVIEWTM format. The comparison of the predicted cavitation showed a scatter in cavity shape and the associated pressure field. To give advice for future calculations it is concluded that the grid should provide sufficient resolution to resolve expected flow phenomena such as side jets that tend to detach from the trailing end of the cavity.