Total resistance prediction of an intact and damaged tanker with flooded tanks in calm water

This paper presents the prediction of the total resistance of an intact and damaged ship model using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. The study is performed on the model of a tanker with a large hole in the bottom of the hull. The damage is based on statistical data on ship grounding accidents and the chosen hole size and location in the midship area represents its plausible size and location due to grounding. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with the volume of fluid (VOF) surface capturing technique are employed to solve the flow around the steadily advancing model of a damaged ship in calm water. The experiments, both on an intact and a damaged ship model that were carried out in the towing tank of the Brodarski Institute in Zagreb, Croatia, are used to evaluate the results. The numerical results are in a good agreement with the experimentally obtained results. The significant average increase of 27% in total resistance due to the altered flow around the hole and inside the flooded tanks can be observed for the analysed case. The study shows that the proposed CFD model and settings provide a good prediction of the total resistance together with the flow both around the damaged hull and inside the flooded tanks of the damaged tanker.