CFD simulation on workability of a seaweed harvesting boat due to wake-wash

Abstract

In the present study, a 2-ton class seaweed harvesting boat was optimized by employing aW-shape hull form to reduce roll motion due to wake-wash from passing boats. A series of numerical simulations were conducted using Star-CCM+, a commercial CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software, to improve workability by optimizing the hull form from the conventional design (original hull form). The 2-dimensional roll decay motion of various hull forms with W-shape midsection were simulated and the hull form with the best performance in free roll decay test was selected. To evaluate stability of each hull in wake-wash, the original or optimized hull was alternately located at the middle of a computational domain as a target ship while an advancing ship (original hull) moved forward generating Kelvin waves which impact the original or optimized boat. Two kinds of working conditions, i.e., ballast and full loading conditions, of the target ship were considered with and without initial roll angle. It was observed through the comparison of motion between the original and optimized hulls a decrement of roll motion for the optimized ship demonstrating the effectiveness of the W-shape hull. Decrement of roll motion was observed for both working conditions. Additionally, the optimized W-shape hull showed an extraordinary performance under the ballast condition without initial roll angle.