Experimental Investigation on Resistance Reduction for Multiple Service Conditions of Container Ship Bulbous Bow Optimization

Abstract

Yin, X.; Huang, L.; Lu, Y.; Zou, J., and Wan, L., 2021. Experimental investigation on resistance reduction for multiple service conditions of container ship bulbous bow optimization. Journal of Coastal Research, 37(3), 634–643. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.In this article, the main objective is to implement an experimental investigation on resistance reduction within a hydrodynamic container ship design procedure for bulbous bow form optimization under multiple service conditions. One container ship was used as a parent ship, and using different bulb characteristic parameters as design variables, a new hull form with an optimized bulbous bow was developed to satisfy the economical requirement of slow steaming for the modern container vessel. Through the conduction of ship-model resistance tests in both design and scantling drafts covering a wide speed range, the experimental results of various resistance component values were monitored and compared between the original and optimized ship. The results show that the hydrodynamic performance of the optimized hull form is improved, especially at lower speeds, and the total resistance reduction per unit displacement in full scale reaches 30%∼40% and then decreases gradually with the increase of Froude number under design draft conditions in contrast to the original hull, suggesting the evolved hull form optimization method is valuable. In addition, the bulbous bow optimization method is proved more practical and effective than the traditional optimization process, which is only based on a contractually specified design condition. On the basis of the comparison and analysis of test results, the influence of the bulbous bow characteristic parameters on the resistance performance is further studied. The presented work is of high reference value for the hydrodynamic optimization design of modern container vessels.