MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF THE SUBMARINE PROPELLER BY USING VARIOUS MATERIALS

Abstract

Composites materials are finding wide spread use in naval applications in recent times. Ships and under
water vehicles like torpedoes Submarines etc. Torpedoes which are designed for moderate and deeper depths require
minimization of structural weight for increasing payload, performance/speed and operating range for that purpose
Aluminium alloy casting is used for the fabrication of propeller blades. In current years the increased need for the light
weight structural element with acoustic insulation, has led to use of fiber reinforced multi-layer composite propeller. The
present work carries out the structural analysis of a CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) , (Graphite fiber reinforced
plastic ), Nibral propeller blade which proposed to replace the Aluminium 6061 propeller blade. Propeller is subjected
to an external hydrostatic pressure on either side of the blades depending on the operating depth and flow around the
propeller also result in differential hydrodynamic pressure between face and back surfaces of blades. The propeller
blade is modelled and designed such that it can with stand the static load distribution and finding the stresses and
deformation, strain, for different materials aluminium, Nibral and Graphite fiber reinforced plastic ,carbon fiber
reinforced plastic materials. This work basically deals with the modeling and design analysis of the propeller blade of a
torpedo for its strength. A propeller is complex 3D model geometry. This requires high end modeling CATIA software is
used for generating the blade model. This report consists of brief details about Fiber Reinforced Plastic materials and
the advantages of using composite propeller over the conventional metallic propeller. By using ANSYS software static,
modal analysis were carried out for four different materials.