Review of Cyclic Varying Pitch Propeller for Commercial Vessels

Typical propellers today are the fixed pitch (FP) and controllable pitch (CP) propeller. With the CP propeller it is possible to pitch all the blades of the propeller at the same time. A cyclic varying pitch (CVP) propeller for commercial vessels is a modification of a CP propeller. With the CVP propeller it is possible to control the pitch of the propeller blades individually. Having the possibility of making a cyclic variation to the blade pitch can yield performance improvements with respect to: efficiency, cavitation, vibrations, pressure pulses and noise. This is because the propeller operates in the wake of the ship. The inflow into the propeller is therefore non-uniform distributed over the propeller, making the operation condition of the individual blade change depending on the blades position in the wake field. In this paper a review and discussion of the research made so far for the CVP propeller is made. The challenges in realizing the CVP propeller for commercial vessels are identified which constitutes the foundation for future researchof the CVP propeller