Innovations in Waterjet Technology

[camglasgow]

Hello all, this is my first post in what looks like a great forum & community.

I’m a final year aeronautical engineering student at the University of Glasgow. My final year project is to propose and research design innovations for marine waterjet propulsion systems. So far I have looked into the viability of creating an electrically powered waterjet (to drive a cabin-cruiser type boat). The innovation part here is the integration of an electric motor in the waterjet duct so essentially it is a shaftless device, with the impeller ring acting as an armature.

I was wondering if anything similar to this had been done before, and if anybody could point me in the direction of any helpful resources for electric waterjets?

Thanks,
Chris

[brian eiland]

Have a look at this thread I started but didn't get much reaction

Exciting New EPS Thruster (& Propulsion)
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9432

"It appears as though the preipheral drive power is an electric motor of some sort integrated into the outer ring. This would make sense with all of the new talk of diesel/electric systems."

[camglasgow]

After further investigation it appears that the idea of tip-driven thrusters has been around for a while, but only recently has the idea manifested itself in waterjet systems.

"Use of an Electromagnetic Rim Driven Propulsor For Waterjet Propulsion Systems" by AW Hughes, SR Turnock and SM Abu Sharkh, is the only publication that I'm aware of.

Cheers,
Chris.

[brian eiland]

Just posted some new info on the rim driven propulser concept at http://boatdesign.net/forums/showpost.php?p=79314&postcount=5

Some other cross-references:
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/3961-peripheral-journal-propeller-drive.html#post23833
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/2229-diesel-electric-propulsion.html