Resistance and speed penalty of a naval ship with hull roughness

Abstract

Hull roughness, attributed to factors such as corrosion, the degradation of marine coatings, and, notably, biofouling colonisation, leads to increased fuel consumption, thus entailing significant environmental and economic penalties. While this issue on commercial ships is well documented in recent studies, the specific impact on the speed of warships has received limited attention. To fill this gap, this research quantifies the resistance and power penalties, as well as the speed reduction under various fouling scenarios, and explores the resultant changes in flow characteristics around the hull. For this purpose, full-scale simulations of a naval ship, specifically the DTMB 5415, utilise the unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) method. A modified wall function model was incorporated into the numerical model to accurately simulate the effects of surface roughness.