Advances in Technology Innovation, vol. 2, no. 3, 2016, pp. 73 - 84 73 Copyright © TAETI Optimization of Ducted Propeller Design for the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) Using CFD Aldias Bahatmaka 1,* , Dong-Joon Kim 2 , Deddy Chrismianto 3 1 Interdiciplinary Program of Marine Design Convergence, Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea. 2 Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Systems Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea. 3 Department of Naval Architecture, Diponegoro University, Semarang, Indonesia. Received 09 March 2016; received in revised form 19 June 2016; accepted 21 June 2016 Abstract The development of underwater robot technology is growing rapidly. For reaching the best performance, it is important that the inno- vation on ROV should be focused on the thruster and propeller. In this research, the ducted propeller thruster is used while three types of SHUSKHIN nozzle are selected. The design is compared in ac- cordance with the thruster that has been made as the propulsion device of underwater robots. Each type of the thruster model indicates dif- ferent force and torque. For the analysis, each model is built in Computer Aided Design (Rhinoceros) program packages and Computa- tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to find the most optimal model which can produce the highest thrust. Among the entire model, the Kaplan series (Ka5-75) with the type C of nozzle has the highest thrust which is 2.53 N or 25.24% of extra thrust. For the optimization of thrust, genetic Al- gorithms (GA) is used. The GA can search for parameters in large multi-dimensional design space. Thus, the principle can be applied for determining the initial propeller that produces optimum thrust of ROV. The GA has success- fully shown able to obtain an optimal set pa- rameters for propeller characteristics with the best performance. Ke ywor ds : Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), ducted propeller, CFD, genetic al- gorithms Nomenclature A E propeller expanded area A 0 propeller disk area C Tn regression coefficient of thrust coefficient C Qn regression coefficient of torque coefficient D diameter propeller J advance coefficient K T thrust coefficient K Q torque coefficient N propeller blade pitch P/D pitch diameter ratio Q torque (Nm) S n exponent of J T thrust t n exponent of P/D U n exponent of A E /A 0 V n exponent of Z Z number of blades Ρ density of water 1. Introduction Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is an in- strument formed mini-sized submission vehicle. ROV is usually used to explore underwater photography, military operation and underwater pipeline repairing. ROV is used for activities small cave. ROV is designed to have abilities of seabed rescue operations and repairing of seabed objects from the surface [1]. Underwater robot is designed and manufactured absolutely requires many supporting components to improve the operation to perform a variety missions. Thruster is one component that has function as locomotor of underwater robot to maneuver horizontally when it moves forward and backward and also to maneuver vertically to moves up and down [2]. * Corresponding author, Email: bahatmaka.aldias@gmail.com