Experimental Investigation of Propeller Wake Wash

在结冰的沃茨中航行要求船舶能够在自然冰条件下操作，例如破碎的浮冰和完整的水平冰。传统的破冰作业很大程度上依赖于船舶的质量和动力来破冰。船的结构必须相应地坚固。船舶推进技术的最新创新提供了使用螺旋桨尾流作为另一种破冰、清除和以其他方式管理冰的手段的机会。采用螺旋桨尾流的破冰作业可以显著减少传统破冰作业中涉及的船舶结构-冰相互作用，从而减少结构损坏和燃料或货物意外溢出的可能性，并提高作业的能量效率。螺旋桨尾流清洗已经被水手们使用多年，以清除航道上的碎冰，但只是在方位角型推进器出现后，它才被设计纳入操作中。目前，设计是在特设的基础上进行的，因为对螺旋桨下游的尾流如何发展以及随后如何与自由表面处的海冰相互作用的基本理解有限。拟议的研究将解决这一知识差距。

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.