We are pleased to confirm our Airborne UK team successfully completed the first phase of a development project to develop a demonstrator composite bow thruster propeller. Tunnel thrusters of ships are designed to provide side force to the ship to enhance manoeuvring capability in harbours or additional station keeping power when dynamic positioning.
In order to reduce the cost of the conventional version – a permanent magnet tunnel thruster casted of a nickel-aluminium-bronze alloy – Kongsberg Maritime set up a project together with LZS as partner for the simulation and Airborne UK. Airborne’s role was to provide design for manufacture consultancy, materials advice, tooling production and manufacture of the propeller for testing. The high cost of the previous version is mainly caused by the complexity of the part as well as a significant effort for postprocessing the thruster by hand.
The project partners decided for a disruptive approach and developed a novel tunnel thruster in a hybrid design made of CFRP blades and a stainless steel hub. After 6 months of engineering and further 6 months of prototyping the final prototype reached the sophisticated cost target and goes now through a real test programme at Kongsberg Maritime.
For more information, please reach out to Joe Summers via his Linkedin profile.