Composite propeller in marine industry: first steps toward a technological breakthrough

Nowadays composite propellers are not widely used in the naval and military standards. Yet, profitable consequences could flow from it: weight saving, acoustic radiation reduction, reduced energy consumption, better hydrodynamic performance or an easier maintenance. The research branch of Naval Group, committed to the research project FabHeli, spent the past two years towards investigating these possibilities. FabHeli is a collaborative project partly funded by the French department of Defence (DGA) involving two other companies: Loiretech and Meca. It aims to design, manufacture and test in real conditions a propeller in composite materials. The objectives of this paper are to present technological developments in order to assess a composite materials propeller design and its validation by sea trials.