DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/kapal.v22i1.72927

Ship Propeller Design using Open-Source Codes based on Lifting Line Theory

*Erik Sugianto orcid scopus publons  -  Assistant Professor in Marine Engineering Department, Indonesia
Niki Veranda Agil Permadi orcid scopus  -  Department of Marine Engineering, Shipbuilding Institute of Polytechnic Surabaya, Indonesia, Indonesia
Ahmad Darori Hasan orcid scopus  -  Department of System and Naval Mechatronic Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, Taiwan
Received: 4 May 2025; Published: 30 Jun 2025.
Open Access Copyright (c) 2025 Kapal: Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Teknologi Kelautan
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

The design of a ship's propeller is very important as it directly affects the fuel efficiency, speed, and stability of the ship. Commonly, propellers are designed using  expensive commercial software. This research aims to design a ship propeller using open-source codes based on lifting line theory and using Matlab application. The ship data used is a container ship with a length of 397 metres and a width of 56 metres. The propeller design results were propeller performance such as design performance, induced velocity, inflow angle, expanded blade, blade thickness, lift coefficient, performance curve, 2-D and 3-D outlines. Finally, a qualitative comparison was conducted between the redesigned propeller developed using open-source codes and a real propeller from an actual container ship. The comparison reveals that while the overall geometry and blade shape of both propellers are similar, a key difference lies in the expanded area ratio. The real ship propeller exhibits a significantly wider expanded area. This distinction highlights a potential optimization opportunity and demonstrates the capability of the open-source design approach to approximate real-world propeller characteristics with high fidelity, while also offering flexibility for further refinement.

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Keywords: Lifting line theory; propeller; open-source code; propeller performance.

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Section: Research Articles
Language : EN
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