A Unified Computational Method for Simulating DynamicBehavior of Planing Vessels

High speed planing hulls have complex hydrodynamic behaviors. The trim angle and drafts are very sensitive to speed and location of the center of gravity. Therefore, motion simulation for such vessels needs a strong coupling between rigid body motions and hydrodynamic analysis. In addition, free surface should be predicted with good accuracy for each time step. In this paper, velocity and pressure fields are coupled by use of the fractional step method. On the basis of integration of the two-phase viscous flow induced stresses over the hull, acting loads (forces and moments) are calculated. With the strategy of boundary-fitted body-attached mesh and calculation of 6-DoF motions in each time step, time history of ship motions including displacements, speeds and accelerations are evaluated. For the demonstration of the software capabilities, circular cylinder slamming is simulated as a simple type of water slamming. Then, a high-speed planing catamaran is investigated in the case of steady forward motion. All of the results are in good concordance with experimental data. The present method can be widely implemented in design as well as in performance prediction of high-speed vessels.