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Old 02-04-22, 01:14 PM   #4
Kapitan
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My initial thoughts on this would be it most certainly could be scaled up and also multi bladed (seen some pictures of a 5 blade)

Doing a quick bit of research it does seem the cavitation profile would be more concentrated, so the use of a diffuser may be a bonus with it.

A lot of warships today use variable pitch screws this would clearly be a benefit as you don't have to rotate the blade eliminating the gearing.

The main draw backs I can see:

Time to produce, these screws would be more time consuming than conventional ones, plus the casting process would have to be changed drastically too.

Critically would the screw be able to take the torque load of say a DDG ?

Damage to the screw would mean an entirely new screw rather than a blade switch out, this would require dry docking as opposed to in water blade changes. (rare but does happen)

looking at the website they do offer small commercial use of the screw but haven't gone beyond 10m vessels at this time (according to their website)

Overall though it would be a good idea to test this on say a auxiliary vessel then maybe see if it can take the torque of a DDG, the reason for the auxiliary is to see if they are better at saving fuel than azipods.
From what they are saying it does have benefits in the fuel economy range and it also eliminates gearing to reverse the shaft when going astern.

Just my thoughts after a quick read up and watching that video
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