ESRIG-EES colloquium: Joris Kee, MSc EES student

Title: Design of a new ship propulsion system from biomimetic origin

By: Joris Kee, MSc EES student

Summary:
Conventional marine propulsion from the past decades is based on the rotational mechanism of a propeller to create the thrust to move a vessel forward. This system is easy to engineer due to the rotational energy input of regular engines and can be used for various sizes of vessels. A drawback is considered to be the fact that it has a limited radius and only generates thrust from a small surface area compared to the ship size. If a comparison is made to the regular evolutionary developed way of propulsion which large shares of marine animals use, the efficiency of the propeller is considerably lower. Millions of years of evolution lead to the use of a fin to use a large area of water to create lift and thrust to move through the maritime world. Biomimetic studies analyze these biological properties and look for points of interest to apply in our engineering world and create a more efficient solution for our appliances. In this study a potentially more efficient way of ship propulsion is designed through the review and design of multiple configurations by CAD originally based on thrust generation by a whale-tail.