Design of wake-adapted contra-rotating propellers for high-speed underwater vehicles

Based on the lifting-surface vortex lattice model, a numerical design method of wake-adapted contra-rotating propellers (CRPs) for high-speed underwater vehicles is proposed. According to the given radial circulation distribution, the method can use prescribed camber line shapes to design maximum cambers and pitches of blade sections by controlling circulation at the leading edge, which makes the chordwise distribution of blade loading similar to that of NACA a = 0.8. It also can be performed under prescribed chordwise circulation distributions, where camber line shape and blade section pitch are designed. The Newton–Raphson iterative algorithm is utilised in the design of the pitch and camber. The radial circulation distribution of a set of CRPs for an underwater vehicle is used to redesign CRPs by the proposed method, and the design results are then validated via numerical simulations by solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The results indicate that the proposed method is suitable for the design of CRPs with tapered hubs and skewed blades, and it also exhibits good mesh convergence. The CRPs designed with the given camber line shape and the given chordwise loading distribution both have relatively uniform pressure distributions, with the latter being superior.