A Simplified Prediction Method for the Hydrodynamic Performance of Ship Propellers Under Heave and Pitch Motions

This paper presents a simplified computational method for evaluating the hydrodynamic performance of a ship propeller, taking into account the effects of wave-induced heave and pitch motions. The method combines Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for propeller hydrodynamic force calculations with forced heave and pitch motions computed via the potential flow theory-based method. Numerical simulations at three representative wavelengths demonstrate that heave and pitch motions reduce propeller thrust, increase torque, and decrease the propeller’s efficiency significantly. In addition, the results reveal a nonlinear coupling between heave and pitch effects, where their hydrodynamic contributions are not simply additive. Compared to high-fidelity ship–propeller coupling CFD simulations, the proposed method reduces computational costs by approximately four times while maintaining practical accuracy for wave–propeller interaction analysis.