Book Description

The majority of current techniques used for predicting ship motions rely on assumptions from the potential flow theory. However, this approach is not ideal, since potential flow theory ignores important effects such as breaking waves, turbulence and viscosity, which are significant in problems involving high Froude numbers, those involving large amplitude motions, shallow water problems and problems involving multi-hull ships. These effects should therefore be included in seakeeping and resistance calculations. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approaches are excellent alternatives to potential flow theory, as they can directly account for viscous effects in their calculations. Towing tank tests are used widely around the world, giving very accurate results. However, these may be costly and time-consuming. Towing tank experiments are also hampered by a limited availability of suitable facilities. Computational simulations offer a fast, low cost alternative to towing tank experiments. Continued technological advances offer ever-increasing computational power, which can be harnessed for viscous flow simulations to solve the Navier-Stokes equations. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods are rapidly gaining popularity for naval architecture, ocean and marine engineering applications. The application of CFD techniques to seakeeping problems allow designers to assess the seakeeping performance of a vessel whilst it is still being designed, enabling any necessary corrective action to be taken before the vessel is actually built. This work mainly aims to perform hydrodynamic analyses of mono- and multi-hull ships, and to develop a CFD-based unsteady RANS numerical model to predict the hydrodynamic performance of these ships. This model will cover seakeeping and resistance calculations in both deep and shallow water regions. Firstly, a detailed literature review of the existing numerical methods which have been developed to solve seakeeping problems of ships is performed. This review also looks in detail at the differences between seakeeping analysis techniques; the reasons for these differences are investigated. Following this, unsteady RANS simulations are performed for various seakeeping and resistance applications. In each specific study, the results obtained using a commercial RANS solver are compared to the results obtained using a potential flow theory code and the available towing tank experiments. Finally, the results drawn from each chapter of this thesis are summarised and discussed, and recommendations are made for future research.