Composite material technology for next-generation Marine Vessel Propellers

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CoPropel puts forth a holistic approach towards the realisation of marine propellers made of advanced composite materials. Compared to their traditional counterparts, marine composite propellers offer efficiency gains in propulsion efficiency, noise reduction and weight savings. The CoPropel project will see an interdisciplinary team of experts drawn both from research and industry, from theoretical considerations and numerical modelling to precision manufacturing - assembly and experimental verification testing. The CoPropel action brings together 9 organisations from 5 countries: 4 Research Institutes – TWI, University of Ioannina, Brunel University London and The Bulgarian Ship Hydrodynamics Centre; 4 Industrial partners – Loiretech, MECA, Danaos and Glafcos Marine with one certification body Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore. Together, we will develop and bring to market a marine composite propeller with an embedded structural health monitoring system. The proposed activities will mature our Technology Readiness Level to 5-6 and drastically de-risk the integration of the investigated solutions on future products, effectively resulting in reducing the direct operating costs for the operators while minimising the environmental impact. Potential savings for full-scale marine vessel propellers are projected to reach 15% and will be confirmed during our real-time sea trials as part of the CoPropel project.