Numerical scrutiny of the influence of side hulls arrangement on the motion of a Trimaran vessel in regular waves through CFD analysis

Abstract

Sea environmental conditions such as waves and winds influence several parameters associated with the performance characteristics of Trimaran vessels such as speed, sailing safety, and dynamic forces acting on the structure. On the other hand, the desirable performance of the Trimarans in different sea conditions has attracted the attention of many researchers. However, there remains one of the important issues associated with the design of Trimaran, which is the arrangement of the lateral side hulls, which can help improve its performance. Accordingly, in the current paper, the motion of this type of vessel is numerically investigated for different longitudinal and transversal hull positioning using finite volume method in Flow-3D software. To this end, vessel’s motion is examined in the presence of regular waves and at different wave encounter angles. In addition to the optimization of the side hulls location, the dynamics of a Trimaran and its sensitivity to different sea conditions and vessel speed are studied. The computed results show that Trimaran vessels have suitable dynamics with lower longitudinal side body and large transversal distances.