Experimental Investigation of Propeller Wake Wash

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Navigation in ice-covered waters requires that vessels be capable of operating in natural ice conditions, such as broken pack ice and intact level ice. Conventional ice-breaking operations rely largely on the mass and power of the vessel to break through ice. The ship's structure must be correspondingly strong. Recent innovations in marine propulsion technology have provided opportunities to use propeller wake wash as another means to break, clear, and otherwise manage ice. Icebreaking operations employing propeller wake wash can reduce significantly the ship structure-ice interaction involved in conventional icebreaking, thereby reducing the likelihood of structural damage and accidental spills of fuel or cargo, and improving the operation’s energy efficiency. Propeller wake wash has been used for years by mariners to clear broken ice from shipping channels, but it has only been since the advent of azimuthing types of propulsors that it has been incorporated into operations by design. At present, the design is done on an ad hoc basis as there is limited fundamental understanding of how the wake wash develops downstream of the propeller and subsequently interacts with sea ice at the free surface. The proposed research will address this knowledge gap. The proposed research will characterize propeller wake wash in terms of the 3-D fluid velocity field downstream, including the velocity field at the free surface. The characterization will be based on laboratory experiments. Experiments will be done in the tow tank at Memorial University's Ocean Engineering Research Centre. Experiments will focus first on the propeller wake wash in the absence of ice, and then on the interactions of the wake wash and ice. The focus of interest in terms of ice features will be on pack ice. A semi-empirical mathematical model will be developed of the downstream wake, and the interaction between the flow at the free surface and its interaction with pack ice. The model of the wake wash field will include mean velocities, as well as of its variability throughout the downstream wake. It will be tested against field observations of ships in ice, as the final experimental element of the proposed work. The wake model will predict the downstream surface velocity field in terms of key factors: delivered power, depth of submergence of the propeller, and inclination angle of the propeller to the free surface. When coupled to the ice interaction model, the model should predict how wake wash can clear pack ice en masse downstream from the propeller. This will be useful for designers and operators, such as commercial shipping, the Coast Guard, Navy and others who navigate in ice in connection with transportation, exploration and defense. The proposed research covers a 5 year time span. Four Master’s students will work on this program. All graduate students will be in a thesis-based degree program.