Comparative Investigation of Resistance Prediction for Surface Combatant Ship Model using CFD Modeling

Abstract

The Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) is a highly maneuverable combatant ship capable of littoral and open ocean operations. It was designed to confront modern maritime and economic security threats. The MMSC takes the proven capabilities of the littoral combat ship and the inherent flexibility of the Freedom-variant hull to meet the unique maritime requirements of international navies. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is applied to present a method to predict the resistance for new surface combatant ship. First, calculations for a typical benchmark DTMB 5415-24 model are carried out using three different mesh sizes for Froude numbers from 0.10 to 0.48 for the purpose of model validation by Star CCM+. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data and the published CFD solutions in terms of wave field and resistance coefficients for accuracy of the solution parameters. Finally, the method is used to study the influence of Froude number variation on the total resistance and wave pattern for the new combatant ship model under the same conditions. Quantitative agreement between the numerical simulations has been observed. This demonstrates that our CFD model is capable of simulating the steady flow around a ship hull with an acceptable accuracy and thus can be used as a complementary tool to laboratory model tests for ship design and ship hydrodynamic research.