Numerical flow and performance analysis of waterjet propulsion system

The numerical analysis of a waterjet propulsion system was performed to provide detail understanding of complicated three-dimensional viscous flow phenomena including interactions of intake duct, rotor, stator, and contracted discharge nozzle. The incompressible RANS equations were solved on a moving, non-orthogonal multiblocked grid system. To handle interface boundary between rotor and stator, the sliding multiblock technique using cubic spline and bilinear interpolation method was applied. The numerical results were compared with experiment and a good agreement was obtained. The complicated viscous flow feature of the waterjet, such as the secondary flow inside of the intake duct, the recovery of axial flow by the action of the stator, and tip vortex, etc. were well understood by the present simulation. The performances of thrust and torque were also predicted.