Numerical Investigation of the Shallow Water Effect on the Total Resistance, Vertical Motion and Wave Profile of a Container Ship Model

Abstract A ship sailing in shallow water is affected by the interaction between the moving hull and the seabed in different forms such as: significant increase in total resistance, increase in the sinkage and trim that may result in squatting effect, a change in wave pattern and increased wave amplitude, a change in the propeller wake field and an altered propeller and manoeuvring performance. In order to investigate the influence of shallow water on a container ship that is assumed to be subjected to work in different water depths, the KRISO container ship model is analysed in both deep and shallow water, with a special focus on the change in resistance, vertical motion and wave profile. A viscous flow simulation is performed first to predict the ship performance in deep water and the results are compared with the experimental data that are available in the public domain. Then, the critical shallow water condition is investigated and the obtained results are compared against those formerly obtained in deep water. The numerical simulations are performed using the viscous flow solver ISIS-CFD of the FINETM/Marine software provided by NUMECA. The solver is based on the finite volume method to build the spatial discretization of the transport equation in order to solve the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. Closure to turbulence is achieved using the Menter Shear Stress Transport (K-ω SST) model, while the free-surface is captured through an air-water interface based on the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method. The comparison between the numerically obtained results and the available EFD data showed a satisfactory congruence.