The Maritime Engineering Reference Book

5.3 Propeller performance characteristics

For discussion purposes the performance characteristics of a propeller can conveniently be divided into open water and behind-hull properties. In the case of open water characteristics, these relate to the description of the forces and moments acting on the propeller when operating in a uniform fluid stream; hence the open water characteristics, with the exception of inclined flow problems, are steady loadings by definition. The behind-hull characteristics are those generated by the propeller when operating in a mixed wake field behind a body. Clearly these latter characteristics have both a steady and unsteady component by the very nature of the environment in which the propeller operates. In this section ...