Determination of the Aerodynamic Drag of Pneumatic Life Rafts as a Factor for Increasing the Reliability of Rescue Operations

Abstract

Abstract Ensuring the safety of ship crews at sea is of the utmost importance. Life rafts are one of the basic components of any seagoing vessel and ensuring their stability is an important component of maritime research. This study concerns the determination of the aerodynamic drag coefficients of pneumatic life rafts in a full range of wind speed and directions. The drag coefficients are based on full-scale experimental studies and numerical calculations (computational fluid dynamics) carried out with Flow-3D software. Two types of life rafts are analysed in the numerical simulations, namely, a non-deformed raft and a raft deformed under the influence of wind pressure at a given flow velocity. The shape of the deformed pneumatic life raft is recreated on the basis of photographic documentation from experimental studies. The results of the numerical calculations are verified on the basis of full-scale flow experiments carried out at the Low Speed Wind Tunnel T-3 Laboratory at the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw. This study shows that there is a dependence of aerodynamic drag on the degree of deformation of the above-water part of the life raft, as well as the angle of the raft setting to the wind. In real water conditions, this angle depends mainly on the anchor point of the drift anchor and therefore should be considered at the design stage, which will directly reduce the wind leeway of the raft.