Abstract
Recently, to reduce the noise and vibration levels of ships, high skewed marine propellers with thinner thickness are adopted widely, however, such propeller design trend causes to reduce the strength of blades. Propeller blades are rotating continuously in irregular wake field of ships. So, it is necessary to examine the strength of them precisely including from a viewpoint of fatigue strength. In present paper, the fatigue strength of propeller blades was investigated. Firstly, fatigue tests for Al Bronze, the representative propeller material, were carried out. The S-N curve was obtained for the assessment of the fatigue crack initiation life. And the material properties C, m for the fatigue crack propagation analysis based on the Paris' equation were derived. For the 2nd stage, the structural responses of propeller blades in irregular ship wake field was carried out using the finite element analysis code. And the fatigue strength of propeller blades were considered based on the calculated stress levels and material characteristics for fatigue strength.
