ESTIMACIÓN DE LAS PRESTACIONES DE UN PROPULSOR ONDULATORIO MARINO MEDIANTE CFD Y COMPROBACIÓN EXPERIMENTAL

Abstract

The study of undulating motion of a body in a liquid is an interesting and challenging research subject in the field of engineering. For designers, the practical implementation of propulsion mechanisms in a fluid medium based on rotation has been easy to deal with because of the state of the art in its time, and this has meant that it has not been more interest in the deep developing undulating mechanisms, which are the majority in nature. In this paper, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was done to investigate the fluid flow around an undulating marine propeller when moving in water. This CFD approach yields a dataset that allows a detailed investigation of the fluid mechanics. The main objectives of this study were: to quantify the thrust and drag forces acting on the foil, to study the variation of the thrust with the frequency of oscillation and to compare calculated results with experimental ones. Keywords: marine propeller; undulating propulsion; CFD