Design and Experimental Verification of Hubless Rim-Driven Propulsor Consisting of Bearingless Propeller for an Unmanned Underwater Drone

Myoung-Su Kim and Sung-An Kim ()
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Myoung-Su Kim: Sansystech, Busan 46918, Republic of Korea
Sung-An Kim: Electric Power Machinery Team, Electric Propulsion Safety Technology Center, Ulsan Headquarters, Korea Marine Equipment Research Institute, Ulsan 44776, Republic of Korea

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: This paper presents the design and experimental verification of a hubless rim-driven propulsor (HRDP) for an unmanned underwater drone. The bearings of the HRDP are required to rotate and fix the propeller. However, the bearing increases the weight and size of the propulsor. Therefore, this paper proposes a structure in which the rotor of a surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motor (SPMSM) and a hubless propeller are combined without the bearings in the rim-driven propulsor. The design procedure of the propulsor is established and the response surface method (RSM) is used to design and optimize the proposed structure. The validity of the HRDP with the proposed structure is verified through simulation results using an electromagnetic field (EF) analysis and computational fluid analysis, and test results using a water tank. Finally, compared to the initial HRDP, the weight of the SPMSM in the optimized HRDP is decreased by 7.3%, and by reducing the required torque by about 19%, power consumption is reduced by about 24.66 W.

Keywords: hubless rim-driven propulsor; surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motor; response surface method; electromagnetic field analysis; computational fluid analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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