Supercavitation propeller

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The supercavitation propeller is a variant of a propeller for propulsion in water, where cavitation (formation of water vapour) is actively employed to gain increased speed by reduced friction.

This article distinguishes a supercavitation propeller from a supercavitating propeller which is any propeller running under supercavitating conditions. In general non-supercavitation propellers become less efficient when they are running under supercavitating conditions.

The supercavitation propeller is being used for military purposes and for high performance boat racing vessels as well as model boat racing.

Artist rendering of a supercavitation propeller in function

The supercavitation propeller operates in the conventional submerged mode, with the entire diameter of the blade below the water line. The blades of a supercavitation propeller are wedge shaped to force cavitation at the leading edge and avoid water skin friction along the whole forward face. The cavity collapses well behind the blade, which is the reason the supercavitation principle avoids the erosion damage due to cavitation that is a problem with conventional propellers.

An alternative to the supercavitation propeller is the surface piercing, or ventilated propeller. These propellers are designed to intentionally cleave the water and entrain atmospheric air to fill the void, which means that the resulting gas layer surrounding the propeller blade consists of air instead of water vapour. Less energy is thus used, and the surface piercing propeller generally enjoys lower drag than the supercavitation principle. The surface piercing propeller also has wedge shaped blades, and propellers may be designed that can operate in both supercavitation and surface piercing mode.

The pioneer of this technology and other high speed offshore boating technologies was Albert Hickman (1877-1957), early in the 20th century. His Sea Sled designs used a surface piercing propeller.