Objectives   This paper aims to clarify the characteristics of the unsteady force spectrum of a pump-jet operating under inflow turbulence.

  Methods  The turbulence grid and Fourier synthesis method are employed to produce inflow turbulence with spatial flow structure and temporal fluctuation, combined with large eddy simulation (LES) to obtain the broadband unsteady force spectrum of the pump-jet.

  Results  The results show that the proposed method can obtain the unsteady force broadband spectrum for the duct, stator and rotor. The unsteady force broadband spectrum of the pump-jet is composed of the ''humps'' around the blade passing frequency and its multiples, the characteristic line spectrum at the stator blade passing frequency and the shaft frequency of the adjacent stator multiples. As the number of blades increases, the ''humps'' become more obvious and the characteristic peaks change periodically and reach the minimum when the number of blades is equal to the number of rotors. Due to the use of the stator and duct, the amplitudes of the unsteady force broadband spectrum of the pump-jet are higher than those of the propeller, but the ''humps'' are not as obvious.

  Conclusions  The results of this paper can be helpful for clarifying the unsteady force characteristics of a pump-jet induced by inflow turbulence, and provide ideas for the vibration and noise reduction of pump-jets.