Numerical PMM test in shallow water using CFD method

Abstract

This study aims to the estimation of the ship manoeuvrability in shallow water by using the numerical PMM approach, which analyses the hull hydrodynamic responses and manoeuvring performance from the viewpoint of coefficients. The test model is a scaled KVLCC2 tanker operating at a low Froude number of 0.0514. Static drift test and pure yaw test are considered, and the water depths vary from deep water to very shallow water of 20% under-keel clearance. The numerical tank is built based on an OpenFOAM+ package. The free surface is modelled by volume-of-fraction method, and the k-ω SST model associating with wall functions is applied for turbulence. After the convergence tests and validation works, the numerical tank is employed to investigate the wave-depth effect on hydrodynamic forces and manoeuvring coefficients. The present results show that the forces of static drift test, particularly sway force, can be significantly changed as the water depth decreases.