Investigation of the Optimum Duct Geometry for A Passenger Ferry

F. elik1*
A. Dorul1
Y. Arkan1
Yildiz Technical University,
Dept. of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering,
Istanbul, TURKIYE.

ABSTRACT: The use of a duct around the propeller aims to increase the propulsive efficiency by means of
accelerating the inflow to the propeller (accelerating duct, kort nozzle), to decrease the inflow to the propeller
for reducing the cavitation risk (decelerating duct), or to protect the propeller against damage. In this study
the optimum duct geometry is investigated for a passenger ferry with the aim of protecting the propeller
against damage and if possible to increase the propulsion efficiency. The effects of various duct sections on
performance of the ducted propellers are analyzed by a ducted propeller analysis method based on lifting
surface theory.

INTRODUCTION

Screw propellers are the most common devices in

propulsion of the marine vehicles for the last 170
years. The purpose of a propeller is usually
production of thrust needed to overcome the ship
resistance. This is carried out in reaction to the
momentum produced by accelerating the flow as a
result of the energy transferred to the water. The
power delivered to the propeller produces a sudden
increase of pressure at the propeller disk. This
causes acceleration of the water in axial direction
and produces thrust. While the shaft torque is
transferred to the water, it causes induced velocity
losses in rotational, radial or axial directions.
Besides the energy losses due to increases in the
slipstream, the blade friction losses also occur
associated with the passage of the blades through
the viscous zone. These energy losses are given in
Fig. 1 (Glover, 1987). As indicated in this figure,
especially axial energy losses are increasing
related with thrust loading. In order to achieve
further gains in efficiency, additional auxiliary
propulsor devices are required to reduce the axial
energy losses.

IX HSMV Naples 25 - 27 May 2011

Rotational

Axial
Energy Losses (%)

Drag

Total

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

2
3
4
5
Thrust Loading Coefficient (C T )

Fig.1 Propeller energy losses for a range of thrust loading.

During the last three decades, considerable effort

has been made in order to improve the propulsive
efficiency of screw propellers used on ships. One
of these propulsors is called duct or known as
nozzle found as widespread application.
Ducts are generally used to obtain additional gain
in efficiency, but also are used to reduce the
cavitation risk or to protect the propeller from
damage. The first type is named as accelerating
duct or kort nozzle and the second type is the
decelerating duct as shown in Fig. 2.
In an accelerating duct, the flow velocity is
increased due to the duct. Decelerating duct shapes
can cause the flow to be decreased, which keep
away the risk of cavitation but may decrease
efficiency. The decelerating duct is generally
1

suitable for navy ships, so it is rarely applied. The

decelerating duct operates as a pump jet.

field. They calculated the pressure distribution and

thrust on propeller and duct.
In this study, numerical analyses are carried out
for five different duct geometries, and the results
are compared with each other and the propeller
without duct. Whether an additional gain in
efficiency is investigated for various nozzle
geometries for a high speed passenger ferry.
2

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2 (a) decelerating duct, (b) accelerating duct.

The duct device was first introduced to marine

vessels by Stipa and Kort, and developed by
experimental works. They have showed that
application of duct increases propulsive efficiency
for heavily loaded propellers. Interaction of duct
and propeller is taken into account by van Manen
and Oosterveld (1966) at Maritime Research
Institute Netherlands (MARIN). Extensive
systematical experiments on ducted propellers
have been carried out using standard nozzles,
including the accelerating and decelerating types
with the Ka Propeller Series. It is seen that the use
of an accelerating nozzle produces an increase in
efficiency only at a higher thrust loading. For light
loading, Sparenberg (1969) has showed that the
representation of a propeller by an actuator disc in
a duct in axisymmetric flow yields the efficiency
of the actuator disc alone regardless of the duct
shape.
A more comprehensive study has been carried out
by Kerwin et al. (1987) where the flow on the duct
was predicted by using a potential based panel
method. Ryan and Glover (1972) have presented
an
interactive
procedure
by combining
axisymmetric surface vorticity analysis for the
duct and propeller design based on a lifting line
theory. A similar method has been introduced by
Gibson and Lewis (1972) where the propeller was
modeled by an actuator disk. This method is
applicable to propellers of arbitrary radial loading,
and it therefore is purely an analysis method. Ryan
and Glovers method was then improved to the
open water off-design problem for the
performance analysis of ducted propeller by
Caracostas (1978) based on the surface vorticity
distribution technique. Falcao De Campos (1983)
established extensive studies on the calculation of
duct performance in uniform and radialy variable
inflow. Glover and Szantyr (1989) presented a
paper to predict the performance of ducted
propellers operating in a non-uniform velocity
IX HSMV Naples 25 - 27 May 2011

DUCTED

PROPELLER

ANALYSIS

METHOD
The ducted propeller analyses are carried out using
an analysis method based on the lifting surface
theory presented by Glover and Szantyr (1989). In
this method, the hydrodynamic loading on the
propeller blades and on the duct is replaced by
appropriate distribution of vorticity while the
thickness of the propeller blades and duct is
modeled by the appropriate distribution of sources
and sinks. These singularities are distributed on
the surfaces built up by the meanlines of the
propeller blade sections and the meanlines of the
chordwise duct sections. Kinematic boundary
conditions are utilized to determine the vortex
distributions which represent hydrodynamic loads.
The kinematic boundary condition forms origin of
the lifting surface equation formulation. According
to this condition, the velocity of the flow which
comes to the lifting surface should be parallel to
the surface. In other words, no flow should pass
from the surface; total of normal velocity should
be zero at all points on the surfaces of the nozzle
and the propeller camber line. This condition can
be written as below for propeller and nozzle lifting
surfaces:
1
1
1
n. p .( )dS n. pv .( ) dS
4 S p
rp
rp
S pv

1
1
n. po .( )dS n. d .( ) dS
rp
rd
S ps
Sd

n.

dv

.(

Sdv

(q p q pc )
Sp

1
1
) dS n. do .( ) dS
rd
rd
Sds

1
( )dS (qd qdc ) ( )dS
n rp
n rp

Sd

(V .R).n 0
In the equation above, q pc and qdc is written only
if cavitation is determined. Also .R is relevant
with rotation of the propeller and is taken into
2

account if the calculation is made only at a point

on the propeller. In case of sheet cavitation on
propeller blades or nozzle, the normal vector
n changes to show the change in the original
lifting surface geometry.
3

nozzle (Rice Propulsion) and HR nozzle (Wrtsila)

as given in Fig. 4.

GEOMETRY OF DUCTED PROPELLERS

In this study, for a passenger ferry, four different

(a)

nozzle geometries are investigated if there is any

gain in efficiency or not. While the first two of
these duct sections are conventional (Nozzle 19A,
Nozzle 32), other two sections are newly designed
(b)

sections (HR, Rice-Speed).

3.1 Conventional duct sections
Two of the duct profiles which are investigated in
this study are Nozzle 19A (accelerating) and
Nozzle 32 (decelerating) as given in Fig. 3.
Some duct designs can cause drag as the speed of
advance increases. With the Kort nozzle, this drag
becomes more significant at higher speeds and can
eventually reduce the overall thrust gain to zero.
For Nozzle 19A nozzle, an axial cylindrical part at
the inner side of the nozzle at the location of the
screw, the outside of the nozzle profile is made
straight and the trailing edge of the nozzle is
thicker.
Detailed information about these nozzle sections
can be found in Oosterveld (1970).

Fig.4 Rice-Speed nozzle, (b) HR nozzle.

The section of a Rice-Speed nozzle was developed

from air wing sections displaying highest
lift/lowest drag properties (van Manen &
Ooosterveld 1966). A comparison of flow around
Nozzle 19A and Rice-Speed nozzles is given Fig.
5 (Wrtsila).

Fig.5 Flow around Nozzle 19A and Rice-Speed nozzles.

(a)

(b)
Fig.3 (a) Nozzle 19A, (b) Nozzle 32.

3.2 Rice-Speed and HR nozzles

Conventional duct sections (e.g. Nozzle 19A)
cause an additional drag in high speed ships. For
increasing efficiency in high speed ships, some
nozzle sections are developed such as Rice-Speed
IX HSMV Naples 25 - 27 May 2011

The nozzles are aerofoil shaped rings placed

around the propeller. Nozzles have found their
application in ships for decades with good results.
The main advantage of the nozzle is that it
increases the trust on the propeller. Comparing
propellers with and without nozzles shows that the
nozzle propeller offers about 25% more total thrust
(nozzle and propeller) than an open propeller at
zero ship speed (bollard condition). At high ship
speeds this difference becomes less up to the point
where the nozzle generates drag instead of thrust.
The HR nozzle is very useful for improving the
performance of the propulsion unit of tugs and
dredgers. This nozzle generates more thrust at
dredging conditions in combination with more
thrust at free-sailing speed, compared with
conventional nozzles such as the Nozzle 19A
nozzle.
3

Blade Section: NACA66 (a = 0.8)

Nominal wake fraction, 1-w = 1.022
The open propeller design is made with lifting line
method (Celik & Guner 2006), while lifting line is
used for the propeller and axisymmetric vortex
distribution (Celik et al. 2010) is used for duct in
ducted propeller design.
Fig.6 A comparison of velocity fields between Nozzle 19A
and HR nozzles.

As seen in Fig. 6, according to the velocity fields

around the Nozzle 19A and HR nozzles, Nozzle
19A shows more drag because of the high velocity
field while HR nozzle produces more lift
(Wrtsila).
Nowadays, new nozzle designs are used including
the HR nozzle. Applications of the newly-designed
nozzles are available for even high speed ships
such as RoPax and passenger ferries.
4

ANALYSIS OF DUCTED PROPELLERS

In this chapter, for a fast passenger ferry

propulsion efficiency is analysed for speeds
between 8 and 20 knots. These analyses are carried
out for the ducted propeller geometries mentioned
in previous chapter. For this purpose, propulsion
efficiency is calculated for propeller with Nozzle
19A, propeller with Nozzle 32, propeller with HR
nozzle and propeller with Rice-Speed nozzle. In
all cases, the nozzle length is taken as 0.4D. Also
analyses are made for open propeller and propeller
with Nozzle 19A with a nozzle length of 0.5D.
Two propeller geometries are designed for open
propeller (Fig. 7) and ducted propellers (Fig. 8),
and same propeller section is used in all analyses
including the open propeller analysis. The
differences in open propeller and ducted propellers
are the pitch and nozzle lengths. The designed
propellers do not have any rake or skew as the
propeller data is given below.
Propeller Data:
Ship length, Lbp =59.4 m
Delivered power, PD = 2000 kW
Propeller diameter, D = 1.46 m
Propeller rate of rotation, N = 600 rpm
Number of blades, Z = 4
Ship design speed, VS = 18 Knots
Pitch ratio at 0.7R (P/D) = 0.983 (open)
Pitch ratio at 0.7R (P/D) = 1.193 (ducted)
Blade area ratio, AE/Ao =1.1
IX HSMV Naples 25 - 27 May 2011

Fig.7 3-D model of the open propeller

Fig.8 3-D model of the ducted propeller with 19A nozzle

The ducted and open propeller performance

predictions for a high speed passenger ferry for
different nozzle geometries are carried out using a
lifting surface analysis method developed by
Glover and Szantyr (1989).
The propulsion efficiencies for open propeller and
ducted propellers for speeds between 8 and 20
knots are given in Fig. 9.

65
60

Propulsion efficiency (%)

55
50

Open propeller
19-A nozzle+propeller
Rice nozzle+propeller
HR nozzle+propeller
32 nozzle+propeller
19A DC=0.5D nozzle+propeller

with modern nozzle designs.

In this study, the decelerating nozzle (Nozzle

32) has nearly no effect on the propeller.

45

40

The open propeller is more advantageous in

speeds of over the design speed.

35

30
25
20
8.00

It is possible to increase propulsion efficiency

In design speed, Rice-Speed and HR nozzles

can provide up to % 10 more gain compared to

10.00

12.00

14.00

16.00

18.00

20.00

Ship speed, V (knot)

open propeller and Nozzle 19A. This result is

similar with the claims of Rice-Speed and HR

Fig.9 Comparison of propulsion efficiencies of ducted and

open propellers.

nozzle designers.

As can be seen from Fig. 9, for a fast passenger

ferry in a design speed of 18 knots;

The decelerating nozzle has nearly the same

efficiency in all speeds with respect to the
open propeller. The decelerating nozzle does
not cause additional drag.

The increase in length of Nozzle 19A causes a

decrease in efficiency. A decrease of % 10 in
nozzle length gives an increse of % 3 of
efficiency in design speed.

In speeds under 16 knots, the efficiencies of all

ducted propellers are nearly same. In high
speeds, the efficiencies differ for ducted
propellers.

In design speed, the highest efficiency is in HR

nozzle. This is % 6 more than Nozzle 19A and
% 8 more than open propeller. The difference
in efficiency between Nozzle 19A and HR
nozzle increases with the increase in speed.

CONCLUSIONS

A gain in propulsion efficiency can be

obtained for even high speeds by using
nozzles.

IX HSMV Naples 25 - 27 May 2011

References
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of Ducted Propeller Design. Trans. SNAME, Vol. 74, 522561, 1966.
Sparenberg, J.A. (1969) On Optimum Propellers with A
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Kerwin, J.E., Kinnas, S.A., et. al. (1987) A Surface Panel
Method for the Hydrodynamic Analysis of Ducted
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