Numerical Prediction of Open Water Performance of Flapped Rudders

A low-order potential based boundary element method is applied for the prediction of the performance of flapped rudders as well as all-movable rudders in steady inflow. In order to obtain a reasonable solution at large angles of attack, the location of the trailing wake sheet is determined by aligning freely with the local flow. The effect of the wake sheet roll-up is also included with use of a high order panel method. The flow in the gap of a flapped rudder is modeled as Couette flow and its effect is introduced into the kinematic boundary conditions for flux at both the inlet and the outlet of the gap. In order to validate the present method, the method is applied for a series of rudders and the computational results on forces and moments are compared with experimental data. The effect of the gap size on the forces and moments is also presented.