Review of Modern Trend for Numerical Model Testing in Worldwide Towing Tanks

Ship model testing in numerical towing tanks is a latest trend that has its roots from aerodynamics industry.It is important to understand the application of CFD along with the EFD. Comparative analysis of EFD and CFD for different ship models which include Japanese Bulk Carrier (JBC), RNLI’s Severn Class Lifeboat, Ropax Mono-Hull Ferry, KCS – Hull (KRISO Container Ship), DTMB hull no. 5415 (David Taylor Model Basin), Post Panamax Container Ship, Planing hulls, a high speed craft, a tug boat and a patrol boat, is presented in this review. All results presented in this paper were obtained using new-generation softwares like STAR-CCM+ and OpenFOAM. Wave profiles, resistance, sinkage and trim values are compared for both EFD and CFD testing. It was concluded from the conducted studies that numerical towing tanks can be effectively used to validate the actual test results of various types of vessels. However, towing tank EFD testing is mandatory for each project including a novel / unconventional ship design. The combination of both EFD and CFD is the best way forward. Nonlinear testing phenomenon including maneuvering tests cannot be efficiently realized using current CFD techniques and requires experimentation in towing tanks. Thus, the importance of towing tanks cannot be neglected in face of numerical methods for testing of modern green ships and unconventional propulsors.