ABSTRACT

This paper is presented to calculate the hydrodynamic characteristics of the Voith-Schneider Propeller (VSP) and its optimisation scheme applied to the vessels using genetic algorithm (GA). VSP is an efficient propulsion system in manoeuvring of service vessels such as tugs, offshore vessels, workboats and some other vessels. In this study, hydrodynamic forces of thrust and torque are considered as objective functions, whereas four geometrical parameters of VSP, i.e. disk radius (R), chord (c), span (b) and pitch ratio (e), are considered as variables. A simple GA optimisation scheme is applied to the VSP system to find the optimum values of the VSP parameters to achieve the highest efficiency, in which the thrust and torque are calculated through the practical formulas. The calculated results of the open-water characteristics at various geometrical parameters are presented and validated against experimental data. Finally, the optimisation scheme is applied to two VSP systems employed for two vessels of Voith Water Tractors (VWT) and Offshore Support Vessels (OSV). The optimisation results showed that the efficiency of VSP improved by 6.2% and 1.6% for OSV and VWT vessels, respectively.

摘要

本文旨在计算福伊特-施耐德螺旋桨 (VSP) 的流体动力特性及其应用遗传算法 (GA) 的船舶优化方案。VSP 是一种有效的推进系统，可用于操纵服务船舶，例如拖船、近海船舶、工作船和其他一些船舶。在这项研究中，推力和扭矩的水动力被视为目标函数，而 VSP 的四个几何参数，即圆盘半径 (R)、弦 (c)、跨度 (b) 和螺距比 (e) 被视为变量. 将简单的GA优化方案应用于VSP系统，寻找VSP参数的最佳值以实现最高效率，其中推力和扭矩通过实用公式计算。提出了各种几何参数下开放水域特性的计算结果，并根据实验数据进行了验证。最后，将优化方案应用于福伊特拖拉机 (VWT) 和近海支援船 (OSV) 两艘船舶所采用的两个 VSP 系统。优化结果表明，OSV 和 VWT 船舶的 VSP 效率分别提高了 6.2% 和 1.6%。