Started in June 2022, CoPropel presents a holistic approach to the realisation of marine propellers manufactured from advanced composite materials. Compared to their traditional counterparts, marine composite propellers offer efficiency gains in propulsion efficiency, noise reduction and weight savings.

The CoPropel project is built around an interdisciplinary team of experts drawn both from research and industry, from theoretical considerations and numerical modelling to precision manufacturing – assembly and experimental verification testing. The CoPropel action brings together 9 organisations from 5 countries: 4 Research Institutes – University of Ioannina (Project Coordinator), TWI, Brunel University London and The Bulgarian Ship Hydrodynamics Centre; 4 Industrial partners – Loiretech (Technical Leader), MECA, Danaos and Glafcos Marine with one certification body Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore.

Together, we will develop and bring to market a marine composite propeller with an embedded structural health monitoring system. The proposed activities matured our Technology Readiness Level to 5-6 and drastically derisk the integration of the investigated solutions on future products, effectively resulting in reducing the direct operating costs for the operators while minimising the environmental impact.

Complementary areas of expertise

Technical activities, crosslinking expertise of each consortium member, have been managed as pyramid demonstration: scaling effect started from coupon test then small scale to terminate with full scale testing during sea trials. In parallel of technical demonstration, Composite Propeller guidance note will be updated to support further components certification.