Ship resistance of quadramaran with various hull position configurations

Abstract

Multihull ships are widely used for sea transportation, and those with four hulls are known as quadramarans. Hull position configurations of a quadramaran include the diamond, tetra, and slice. In general, multihull vessels traveling at high speeds have better hydrodynamic efficiency than monohull ships. This study aims to identify possible effects of various quadramaran hull position configurations on ship resistance for hull dimensions of 2 m length, 0.21 m breadth, and 0.045 m thickness. We conducted a towing test in which we varied the hull spacing and speed at Fr values between 0.08 and 0.62 and measured the total resistance using a load cell transducer. The experimental results reveal that the lowest total resistance was achieved with a diamond quadramaran configuration at Fr = 0.1-0.6 and an effective interference factor of up to 0.35 with S/L = 3/10 and R/L = 1/2 at Fr = 0.62.