Numerical simulation of PMM tests for a ship in close proximity to sidewall and maneuvering stability analysis

As the maneuverability of a ship navigating close to a bank is influenced by the sidewall, the assessment of ship maneuvering stability is important. The hydrodynamic derivatives measured by the planar motion mechanism (PMM) test provide a way to predict the change of ship maneuverability. This paper presents a numerical simulation of PMM model tests with variant distances to a vertical bank by using unsteady RANS equations. A hybrid dynamic mesh technique is developed to realize the mesh configuration and remeshing of dynamic PMM tests when the ship is close to the bank. The proposed method is validated by comparing numerical results with results of PMM tests in a circulating water channel. The first-order hydrodynamic derivatives of the ship are analyzed from the time history of lateral force and yaw moment according to the multiple-run simulating procedure and the variations of hydrodynamic derivatives with the ship-sidewall distance are given. The straight line stability and directional stability are also discussed and stable or unstable zone of proportional-derivative (PD) controller parameters for directional stability is shown, which can be a reference for course keeping operation when sailing near a bank.