Investigation of the radial bearing force developed during actual ship operations. Part 1: Straight ahead sailing and turning maneuvers

The quantification of the radial force exerted by the propeller is of paramount importance for the improvement of the design procedures as well as for enhancing the prediction of the controllability and maneuvering qualities of oceangoing vessels. In this work the radial load experienced by the bearing strut of a twin screw configuration is experimentally investigated by free running model tests carried out at the CNR-INSEAN outdoor maneuvering basin. To this purpose the model has been equipped with a novel, in-house developed, two-component transducer. Results obtained for the straight ahead motion for a large range of speeds (0.05