Marine propeller design is defined by competing objectives. The transportation industry has a unique challenge in designing new equipment because of its constant use. Poor designs are paid for upfront and continue to cost the operator throughout the part's entire service life. Propeller design is a complex process attempting to maximize factors, minimizing others while operating within material and equipment constraints. With these considerations, marine propellers are an ideal candidate for advanced computerized optimization. The evolutionary algorithms chosen for this review are specifically designed to solve such problems. The high dimensionality of the input variables and multiple nonlinear constraints make finding feasible solutions complicated and finding an optimal set impractical without computerized methods to evaluate and compare results. The utility of evolutionary algorithms is demonstrated effectively with this analysis and review of the marine propeller design problem.
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