Influence of bank characteristics on ship-bank interaction for a 135m ship length

Abstract

With the global trade ships became larger while channels and canals struggled to grow at the same rate. This leads to ships navigating in restricted waterways much more often than before. This thesis aims to investigate the bank effect which occurs when a ship is navigating close to a bank through the research on how the sway force and yaw moment evolves when parmeters such as speed and distance to bank are varied. The effect is analysed by means of experimental tests performed at the towing tank of University of Liege as well as by CFD simulations performed using FineMarine CFD industrial code. Numerical simulations at both model scale and real scale were conducted. Numerical results were compared with experimental ones and a detailed discussion of results has been realized by comparing values obtained from both methods of evaluation used. All results obtained can be used to build or enhance a mathematical model for pilot simulators to get their certification.