Abstract: During the design process of ice-class propellers, it is necessary to check the blade edge strength to avoid the gap on the blade under ice contact, which may affect the propeller performance of hydrodynamic force, cavitation, noise, etc. To quickly check the blade edge strength, based on the rules in IACS URI3 and the finite element method (FEM), the strength check method of blade edges is established under the concentrated ice load conditions. Considering the particularity of the propeller, an automatic meshing method has been developed by dividing the propeller into many 8-node hexahedron elements along radial, chordwise and thickness directions, which can help to mesh the propeller blades reasonably according to the loading position. The FEM is applied to calculate the stress and deformation distributions of the propeller blade under the concentrated ice load. Taking the PC3 ice-class propeller as an example, the blade edge strength is analyzed and checked. The results show that large stress is concentrated on the blade edge which is prone to cause the damage.

Key words: strength check, blade edge, concentrated ice load, finite element method (FEM), stress distribution