Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 2 hours / session

Recitations: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session

Course Description

This course develops the theory and design of hydrofoil sections, including lifting and thickness problems for sub-cavitating sections, unsteady flow problems, and computer-aided design of low drag cavitation-free sections. It also covers lifting line and lifting surface theory with applications to hydrofoil craft, rudder, control surface, propeller and wind turbine rotor design. Other topics include computer-aided design of wake adapted propellers; steady and unsteady propeller thrust and torque; performance analysis and design of wind turbine rotors in steady and stochastic wind; and numerical principles of vortex lattice and lifting surface panel methods. Projects illustrate the development of computational methods for lifting, propeller and wind turbine flows, and use of state-of-the-art simulation methods for lifting, propulsion and wind turbine applications.

Text

This course uses notes developed by Prof. Jake Kerwin in past years.

Kerwin, Justin. Lecture Notes on Hydrofoils and Propellers. Cambridge, MA, January 2001. (PDF - 3.4 MB) (Courtesy of Prof. Justin Kerwin. Used with permission.)

Evaluation

METHODS WEIGHT
Assignments (Approx. 8-10) 40%
Exams (2) 40%
Project 20%

 

Calendar

SES # TOPICS KEY DATES

1

Intro: Propeller geometry, 2D foil geometry, performance selection and B-series  

2

Actuator disk theory Homework 1 out

3

Potential flow around a circle w. Lift, circulation Kutta-Joukowski law  

4

Vortex lines, Biot-Savart law and velocity induced by a vortex segment Homework 1 due

5

Linearized lifting surface theory, bound and free vorticity, Kelvin's theorem Homework 2 out

6

Vortex lattice lifting line, 3D vortex lattice lifting surface Homework 2 due

7

Lift and drag on a lin. Lifting surface, Glauerts method Homework 3 out

8

Prop. Lifting line theory, Betz/Lerbs criteria, Kramer diagram  

9

Propeller vortex lattice lifting line Homework 3 due

10

Quiz 1, 1 hour open book  

11

Linear 2D theory, circ. Distributions, Glauert's theory Homework 4 out

12

Flat plates, parabolic meanlines and NACA data  

13

Linearized thickness, lighthill's rule, leading edge suction Homework 4 due

14

2D foil design, cavitation buckets, Brockett diagrams Homework 5 out

15

2D panel methods  

16

2D Vortex lattice method

Homework 5 due

Homework 6 out

17

Topic TBD  

18

2D boundary layer theory XFOIL Homework 6 due

19

Quiz 2, 1 hour open book  

20

Vortex lattice propeller lifting surface, PBD  

21

3D panel methods  

22

Effective wake, unsteady inflow and vortex lattice solvers  

23

Throughflow solvers and coupled methods  

24

Windmills  

25

Waterjets  

26

Advanced propulsion