Testing a semi-automated tool for the optimisation of full-scale marine propellers working behind a ship

A procedure for the optimisation of full-scale marine propellers working be- hind a ship is presented. This procedure consists of two stages: the actual optimisation and a detailed investigation of a few selected propeller geometry variants. In the first step, an evolutionary algorithm in combination with the in-house panel code panMARE is used to solve the multi-objective propeller optimisation problem. An efficient method for the evaluation of the individuals and a parameterisation strategy for propeller shapes are presented. Proceeding from the results of the optimisation, a set of selected propeller variants is investigated in detail in the second stage of the procedure. The applied algo- rithm is based on coupling panMARE with a viscous flow solver. An enhancement of this method allows investigating several propeller variants sequentially without stopping the solvers