Designing and Analyzing the Duct used on Pump Jet Propulsion System for an AUV

Pump jet is one of the most important propulsion systems for AUVs in high velocities. The critical characteristic of the pump jet is its high efficiency. Pump jets are among the rare propulsion systems which are used non-autonomously in shallow waters. A simple type of pump jet consists of a rotor, a stator and a cylindrical duct covering the rotor and thestator. However, in some cases the propeller with counter rotating direction has been used instead of the stator in somerecent applications (like the CRP system). According to the advantages of this propulsion system, it has been widelyused in recent years in various naval and military applications. Therefore, there is an essential need to numerical andexperimental analysis on these types of propulsion systems. Numerical and experimental analysis conducted on the propulsion systems with ducts, especially the ones with contra rotating propellers, have been done for the purpose ofachieving to a configuration with higher efficiency and the lowest possibility of cavitation occurrence. The main objectof this article is to design a proper duct for pump jet propulsion system through 2D axisymmetric analysis by means of computational fluid dynamics simulations

Keywords:

Pump Jet Propulsion System , Computational Fluid Dynamics , 2D analysis , duct