Numerical Computation of Wave Resistance Around Wigely Hull Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Tools

The practical application of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), for predicting the flow pattern around ship hull has made much progress over the last decade. Today, several of the CFD tools play an important role in the ship hull form design. CFD has been used for analysis of ship resistance, sea-keeping, manoeuvering and investigating its variation when changing the ship hull form due to varying its parameters, which represents a very important task in the principal and final design stages. Resistance analysis based on CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation has become a decisive factor in the development of new, economically efficient and environmentally friendly ship hull forms. Three-dimensional finite volume method (FVM) based on Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) has been used to simulate incompressible flow around two conventional models namely Wigely parabolic hull in steady-state condition. The numerical solutions of the governing equations have been obtained using commercial CFD software package FLUENT 6.3.26. Model tests conducted with these two models are simulated to measure various types of resistance coefficient at different Froude numbers. It is instructive to visualize the free surface wave generated due to the motion of the hull. This was created using a derived part within FLUENT .The numerical results in terms of various resistance coefficients for different Froude numbers have been shown graphically or in the tabular form. We have also compared wave drag coefficient with another numerical result named Boundary Element Method (BEM) .The agreement between the numerical results and the experimental indicates that the implemented code is able to reproduce correctly the free-surface elevation around the Wigely parabolic hull. The computed results show good agreement with the experimental measurement and also with BEM.