Author(s)

F. Salvatore, A. Giordan and P.G. Esposito

Abstract

The application of genetic algorithms to the optimal design of cavitating hydro- foils in inviscid flow is addressed. A fitting technique based on B-Splines is used for the geometrical description of the hydrofoils in order to reduce the degrees of freedom in the optimization procedure. The flow around the hydrofoil is analysed by a boundary integral formulation for the velocity potential. The shape of the cavitation bubble is determined as a part of the solution through a nonlinear al- gorithm which is solved iteratively. Preliminary numerical results for a hydrofoil configuration are presented. 1 Introduction The aim of this paper is to present a methodology for the optimal design of ship propellers operating in cavitating flow conditions. The probl

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