P Krishnankutty

Maneuvering is an important safety aspect in ship operations so as to avoid accident of ships in seaways and more critically in the restricted area of waterways. IMO stipulates many safety regulations on ship maneuverability in open sea conditions and the local authorities may have additional regulations in harbor, canal and other restricted waterways. The effectiveness of rudder has substantial influence on the maneuverability of a ship. It is often difficult to increase the size of the rudder, to get higher control force/moment, due to the geometrical restrictions of the aft aperture of the ship. A hydrodynamically efficient rudder section addresses this problem to some extent. Most of the fishes maneuver efficiently using their tail. The fish tail functions almost similar to that of a rudder for its movements and navigation. In general, ship with flap rudders and fish tail shaped rudders perform maneuverability better compare to a ship fitted with a conventional rudder having the same underwater surface area. In fishtail shaped rudders, the shape and movements promote good flow patterns in a wider range of rudder angles. In a fish tail, the trailing edge accelerates the flow and recovers lift over the aft section of the rudder. This results in the generation of a higher lift and thus helps in reducing the turning diameter of the vessel. The studies carried out with two rudder types - conventional rudder and fish tail shaped rudder - are presented in this paper. Numerical simulations are performed on these two rudders, both having the same surface area, for different rudder angles in free stream condition. The lift force generated by the fish tail shaped rudder is found to be higher than the conventional rudder. The flow across and the hydrodynamic forces acting on the sections are determined using a commercial CFD code. The effectiveness of the fishtail rudder is also brought out from the numerically simulated turning maneuver of a chosen ship fitted with the same rudder.

Captive ship model tests are conducted to determine the hydrodynamic derivatives appearing in the maneuvering equations of motions of a ship. These hydrodynamic derivatives have an important role in maneuvering prediction of a ship at early design stages. Practically, surface ships operate at different speed conditions. Variation in vessel speed will affect the hydrodynamic derivatives and subsequently maneuvering characteristics of the ship. This paper investigates the effect of vessel speed on the derivatives and maneuvering characteristics of a ship. Captive model tests are numerically simulated in a CFD environment for a container ship at different Froude numbers to estimate the influence of Froude number on hydrodynamic derivatives and on the turning characteristics of the ship.

The examination of maneuvering qualities of a ship is necessary to ensure its navigational safety and prediction of trajectory. The study of maneuverability of a ship is a three-step process, which involves selection of a suitable mathematical model, estimation of the hydrodynamic derivatives occurring in the equation of motion, and simulation of the standard maneuvering tests to determine its maneuvering qualities. This paper reports the maneuvering studies made on a container ship model (S175). The mathematical model proposed by Son and Nomoto (1981, "On Coupled Motion of Steering and Rolling of a High Speed Container Ship," J. Soc. Nav. Arch. Jpn., 150, pp. 73-83) suitable for the nonlinear roll-coupled steering model for high-speed container ships is considered here. The hydrodynamic derivatives are determined by numerically simulating the planar motion mechanism (PMM) tests in pure yaw and combined sway-yaw mode using an Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (RANSE)-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver. The tests are repeated with the model inclined at different heel angles to obtain the roll-coupled derivatives. Standard definitive maneuvers like turning tests at rudder angle, 35 deg and 20 deg/20 deg zig-zag maneuvers are simulated using the numerically obtained derivatives and are compared with those obtained using experimental values.

The study of maneuverability of a ship involves the determination of the hydrodynamic derivatives in the equations of motion. The standard maneuvers are simulated by integrating the equations of motion and the maneuvering parameters are checked for compliance with appropriate standards set by IMO. The numerically or experimentally predicted hydrodynamic derivatives may differ from actual values of the built and operated ship. Hence, it is worth to understand the sensitivity of these variations on the actual maneuvering performance of the ship. This paper deals with a study on the sensitivity of the hydrodynamic derivatives in the equations of motion of a container ship (S175). The sensitivity analysis of all the hydrodynamic derivatives is performed by deviating each derivative in the range of -50% to +50% from the experimentally derived values, in steps of 10%. The standard maneuvering tests like turning tests at rudder angle, δ = 35° and 20°/20° zig-zag maneuvers are performed for each case and their effects on the standard maneuvering parameters are estimated. The hydrodynamic derivatives that are important and which have to be estimated with high level of accuracy in maneuvering studies for a container ship are identified through this study.