Modeling of Unsteady Sheet Cavitation on Marine Propeller Blades

Unsteady sheet cavitation is very common on marine propulsor blades. The authors summarize a lifting‐surface and a surface‐panel model to solve for the unsteady cavitating flow around a propeller that is subject to nonaxisymmetric inflow. The time‐dependent extent and thickness of the cavity were determined by using an iterative method. The cavity detachment was determined by applying the smooth detachment criterion in an iterative manner. A nonzeroradius developed vortex cavity model was utilized at the tip of the blade, and the trailing wake geometry was determined using a fully unsteady wake‐alignment process. Comparisons of predictions by the two models and measurements from several experiments are given.