CFD SIMULATION OF A PLANING HULL

Adrian CARAMATESCU1, Costel Iulian MOCANU1

1
“Dunărea de Jos” University of Galați, România

Abstract: The availability of the robust commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD hereafter) software and high speed
computing has led to increased use of CFD for solution of fluid engineering problems across industry and boat building is no
exception. In the recent years, fast composite planing hulls show an increasing interest in the scientific research field. An extensive
range of both civil and military applications require precise data for loading forces acting on the hull surface and the shape of the
wetted area. The current study presents a numerical simulation of the free surface flow around the hull of a composites power boat
used on the Danube River for several speed values ranging between displacement and planing, including the transition period. A
general numerical method to predict planing behavior of a boat is presented in the paper, using the NUMECA/FineMarine
commercial code to compute the flow solution on a multiblock, high-performance parallel computing method. The RANSE VOF
solver computation method is employed to evaluate the flow field in planing condition and to estimate the pressure field on the hull
surface. The flow around planing hulls involves different and complex physical phenomena such as thin spray flow, wave breaking,
air trapping and turbulent boundary layer. In this particular case, an inverted keel design was used in order to achieve a lower
resistance of the hull due to the air entrapment in the semitunnel. The phenomena is captured well and detailed in the illustrations. In
order to validate the results, the trim angle calculated by the CFD software is compared with the trim measurement conducted in full
scale experiment.
Keywords: CFD, planing hulls, full scale experiment, validation, composites hull, river boat.

1. Introduction
The accelerated development of computing and the use of simplified numerical methods to solve the problems of fluid
flow alongside a ship's hull create the premises for CFD methods to be a powerful verification tool in naval
architecture. Wether it comes to leisure boats, commercial applications or naval operations, planing hulls show a
constant interest since their early development in the end of the 18 th century. The resistance of the hull is a problem
solved by an analytical method in a pretty simple approach, with reasonably accurate results (Savitsky, 1969). The hull
geometry particularities however present an important aspect in the matter of trim estimation and with that the
prediction of the planing speed estimation might slightly differ, even when using the improved versions of the initial
method (Savitsky et al, 2007).
On another approach, the dynamic pressure estimation and its distribution map on the wetted surface is a complex
problem that can not be solved in an analytical approach. Due to different phases involved, the free surface position is
difficult to predict. Pressure distribution is the load a hull of the boat is subjected to, and usually that is roughly
evaluated by the register rules or more recently by the ISO standards.
This paper presents the ability of the software to perform simulations of a complex hull form in preplaning conditions
(Fr=0.57) to high speed full planing conditions ( Fr=1.71).

2. Hull Geometry And Simulating Conditions

The craft that is the subject of this CFD simulation is a leisure composite craft, produced in Romania and used on the
Danube river. A particular shape of the hull is used by the manufacturing company (Plasma SRL) in order to acheive a
shallow draught - especially important in the Danube Delta. The hull presents an inverted keel on a width of 550 mm,
forming a semitunnel with a depth of 50 mm. This section also seeks to reduce the frictional resistance at high speed by
creating an air cushion therefore reducing the wetted surface.
The simulations are carried out for a range of hull speeds between 4 m/s corresponding to full displacement to 12 m/s
when the boat is in full planing condition, declared as the maximum speed of the boat in the corresponding loading
condition.
The main particulars of the craft are presented in Table 1; in Figure 1 there are presented the body lines of the hull,
while in Figure 2 there is shown a rendering of the hull shape.

Table 1
Main particulars of the boat used in the CFD simulation
Length over all 5.65 m
Beam 1.78 m
Depth 0.70 m
Empty draft 0.27 m
Hull weight 220 kg
Max displacement 600 kg
Propulsion power 40 CP

1
Corresponding author: email adrian.caramatescu@ugal.ro
Figure 1. Lines plan of the boat used in the experimental research

Figure 2. A 3D rendering of the CAD model used in the CFD simulation

3. CFD Simulations

The numerical code NUMECA FineMarine was used to perform the planing simulations. The solver uses RANSE VOF
computation method to evaluate the final position of the hull for each simulation speed, having the trim and heave free
while the other motions are blocked. To discretization of the hull surface was done using unstructured monobloc
cartesian grid. The topology of the grid is H-H type, composed of adjacent hexahedral elements. Together with the
computing field, an average of 2.5 million cells were generated for each of the travel speed values. The applicable
boundary conditions are:
- constant velocity equal to the speed of the ship moving at entry into the computing field (upstream);
- sliding conditions at the exit of the computation field (downstream), as well as for the outer boundaries of the domain,
on the free surface and in the symmetry plane;
- on the surface of the body is required the adhesion of the fluid to the wall (no slip).
Grid refinement is done by dividing the cells so that a greater density of cells is present in areas of interest such as the
free surface in the contact area with the hull, spray rails, intersection of the transom with the bottom [66]. In Figure 3,
there can be seen the refinement of the bow and stern area for the simulation ran at 8 m/s.
For the purpose of accurately modeling the turbulent layer and taking into account the available processing power, the
value of the non dimensional wall function coefficient was chosen y+=5.
 a). aft b). fore
Figure 3. Refining by dividing cells in areas of interest for turbulent flow phenomena

3.1. Computational Strategy

A number of studies have addressed the issue of solving the numerical flow around a planing hull based on the theory of
potential flow [94], [95] but in these cases the disadvantage is that these methods can be used only in simulations for
very high velocities, and can not reproduce the formation of waves and spray curtains that appear. The subsequent
solutions that emerged were based on new approaches to large Froude numbers, characterized by multiple phases. In
these situations, the components of viscous resistance and pressure resistance are non-linearly correlated with
hydrodynamic lifting forces and trim angle [96], [97], [98]. The calculation model used by simulatin software used
(Numeca FineMarine) is based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes equations (RANS) for hydrodynamic
performance estimation, the VOF method for estimating the free surface of an incompressible and non-miscible liquid
with the second fluid [99], [100] and the turbulence model k-ω.
The calculation aimed at finding the total pressure (hydrodynamic and hydrostatic) for the stabilized position of the hull
in the terms of heave and trim angles. To define the free area demarcation area, a numerical method called Volume
Volume Fluid (VOF) is used. In the sense of this method, based on a fractional volume function α the fluid density and
viscosity are modified as follows:
μ=μwater+μ_air (1-α)
ρ=ρ_water+ρ_air (1-α),
whare μ_water and μ_air are the dynamic viscozity of water and air and ρ_water și ρ_air are the density of water,
respectively air.
The position of the free surface of the liquid is governed by the volumetric fraction transport equation, and this is solved
for each discreet volume unit in the calculation range:
∂α/∂t+∇(αU)=0, (2.17)
where 0≤α≤1, U is the speed of the flow and ∇ is the cell’s volume.
Solving the equation we can obtain 3 results:
α=0 if the cell si full of air;
α=1 if the cell is full of water;
0<α<1 if the cell contains free surface.
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