Construction of a test facility for the research of ship propulsion systems

Abstract

A ship research facility was set up at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics of the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg (LSTM-Erlangen) with the aim to investigate in detail the models of modern ship propulsion systems. The employed water tunnel is described in this paper, facilitated with a 3 component force balance to measure the thrust, side force and azimuthal moment on ship propulsion systems. For detailed velocity measurements a two-component laser Doppler system has been installed, equipped with burst spectrum analysers and a computer for data acquisition and signal processing. All measurements are related to the advancements of existing ship propeller systems and the development for new ones. Presently pod drive systems were investigated and these are used to demonstrate the performance of the various components of the experimental set-up and the facility of the employed measuring techniques.