Detached Eddy Simulation of the Flow Behind an Isolated Propeller

The turbulent flow behind a rotating marine propeller is analysed by integration of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations with both the Spalart & Allmaras (1994) eddy viscosity model and by a Detached Eddy Simulation approach (Spalart et al 1997) in order to assess advantages and limits of the two different turbulence models. As far as global quantities (like thrust and torque) are concerned, it is shown that the two methods perform equally well. On the contrary, local flow features (like the evolution of the wake or the onset of tip vortices instability) are capured by DES, whereas the eddy viscosity modelling proves to be overly dissipative.