Prediction of nominal wake of a semi-displacement high-speed vessel at full scale

Abstract

In this study, the nominal wake field of a semi-displacement type high-speed vessel was computed at full scale by using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and GEOSIM-based approaches. A scale effect investigation on nominal wake field of benchmark Athena vessel was performed with two models which have different model lengths. The members of the model family have the same Fr number but different Re numbers. The spatial components of nominal wake field have been analyzed by considering the axial, radial and tangential velocities for models at different scales. A linear feature has been found for radial and tangential components while a nonlinear change has been obtained for axial velocity. Taylor wake fraction formulation was also computed by using the axial wake velocities and an extrapolation technique was carried out to get the nonlinear fit of nominal wake fraction. This provides not only to observe the change of nominal wake fraction versus scale ratios but also to estimate accurately the wake fraction at full-scale. Extrapolated full-scale nominal wake fractions by GEOSIM-based approach were compared with the full-scale CFD result, and a very good agreement was achieved. It can be noted that the GEOSIM-based extrapolation method can be applied for estimation of the nominal wake fraction of semi-displacement type high-speed vessels.