The sound field properties of non-cavitating marine propellers are investigated using a hybrid method, in which the FWH (Ffowcs William-Hawkings) analogy is coupled with the BEM (Boundary Element Method) approach. The investigations include both the uniform and non-uniform inflow conditions. For both conditions, the dominant sound source terms and the decay rate of the noise with regard to the distance to propeller centre are investigated. The influence of the permeable surface dimensions in the permeable FWH approach on the hydroacoustic result is also investigated. To carry out the investigations, the formulation to calculate acoustic pressure generated by the propeller wake sheet is proposed for the first time. The issues associated to coupling permeable FWH approach and BEM are also discussed, including the fictitious volume flux problem and the consideration of the ship wake field. It was found that the influence of the permeable surface dimension is little for the 1st BPF (Blade Passage Frequency), but cannot be ignored for the 3rd BPF. In the uniform inflow situation the thickness terms are found to be dominant, while in the non-uniform inflow situation the loading terms are dominant.

The vortex particle method is applied to compute the open water characteristics of marine propellers. It is based on the large-eddy simulation technique, and the Smagorinsky-Lilly sub-grid scale model is implemented for the eddy viscosity. The vortex particle method is combined with the boundary element method, in the sense that the body is modelled with boundary elements and the slipstream is modelled with vortex particles. Rotational periodic boundaries are adopted, which leads to a cylindrical sector domain for the slipstream. The particle redistribution scheme and the fast multipole method are modified to consider the rotational periodic boundaries. Open water characteristics of three propellers with different skew angles are calculated with the proposed method. The results are compared with the ones obtained with boundary element method and experiments. It is found that the proposed method predicts the open water characteristics more accurately than the boundary element method, especially for high loading condition and high skew propeller. The influence of the Smagorinsky constant is also studied, which shows the results have a low sensitivity to it.