Comparative Study of Hydrodynamic Performance of Submerged Water Jet Propeller and Conventional Propeller Under Multiple Operating Conditions
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: As global shipping accelerates toward a green and low-carbon transformation, submerged water jet propulsion has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional propellers due to its high speed efficiency, noise reduction, and adaptability. This study establishes a high-fidelity CFD (computational fluid dynamics) model incorporating vehicle body wake characteristics, validated through open-water experiments. A comparative analysis reveals that the vehicle body wake improves propulsion efficiency by 4.66% for conventional propellers and 2.32% for submerged water jet systems in near-surface operations while exacerbating cavitation-induced efficiency losses by 1.7% and 1.0%, respectively. Notably, submerged water jet propulsion demonstrates superior performance under high-velocity conditions, achieving 5–12.27% higher efficiency than conventional propellers across both open-water and vehicle body wake-affected scenarios. These findings substantiate submerged water jet propulsion’s advantages in complex flow fields, offering critical insights for marine propulsion system optimization.
Source: Machines
Authors: Jiayi Li, Lei Ma, Dongyang Chen, Yunpeng Qi, Tiechao Bai, Guang Pan
Language: English
Subfield: Ocean Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,896
OpenAlex ID: W4407516472