Prediction of a research vessel manoeuvring using numerical PMM and free running tests

. International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations insist on reduced emission of CO2, noxious and other environmentally dangerous gases from ship, which are usually let out while burning fossil fuel for running its propulsive machinery. Contrallability of ship during sailing has a direct implication on its course keeping and changing ability, and tries to have an optimised routing. Bad coursekeeping ability of a ship may lead to frequent use of rudder and resulting changes in the ship's drift angle. Consequently, it increases vessels resistance and also may lead to longer path for its journey due to zigzag movements. These adverse effects on the ship journey obviously lead to the increase in fuel consumption and higher emission. Hence, IMO has made it mandatory to evaluate the manoeuvring qualities of a ship at the designed stage itself. In this paper a numerical horizontal planar motion mechanism is simulated in CFD environment and from the force history, the hydrodynamic derivatives appearing in the manoeuvring equation of motion of a ship are estimated. These derivatives along with propeller thrust and rudder effects are used to simulate different standard manoeuvres of the vessel and check its parameters against the IMO requirements. The present study also simulates these manoeuvres by using numerical free running model for the same ship. The results obtained from both these studies are presented and discussed here