Cavitation analysis of a double acting podded drive during ice milling

Abstract

Propeller ice interaction is a complex phenomenon, which relies on innovative and complex experimental research in dedicated ice tank facilities. Whilst the ice tanks model the contact forces with good agreement, the hydrodynamic loading is often only assumed due to the inability to scale atmospheric pressure during these experiments. A small amount of research is however being conducted in cavitation tunnels using innovative methods to represent full scale ice milling conditions. Propulsor ice interaction tests in a cavitation tunnel are therefore both novel and uncommon due to their complexity. The Emerson Cavitation Tunnel at the University of Newcastle (ECT) has pioneered a series of ice milling tests within a cavitation tunnel using model ice. These ice milling tests allow an ice propulsor to experience correctly scaled cavitation numbers as a propeller interacts with ice. In all of the conditions tested, the current research observed presence and influence of cavitation and showed it to be a significant factor, something that is missing from standard ice tank tests. The work published in this paper forms part of a PhD research into the topic by the principal author [1].