CFD simulations of wind loads on a container ship: Validation and impact of geometrical simplifications

•Analysis of wind load on a container ship with 3D steady RANS CFD simulations.•Ship geometry simplifications can result in very different simulated wind loads.•For detailed geometry, average difference in measured and CFD wind loads is only 5.9%.•Blockage corrections show underestimation of lateral wind load up to 17.5%.

Due to the increasing windage area of container ships, wind loads are playing a more important role in navigating the ship at open sea and especially through harbor areas. This paper presents 3D steady RANS CFD simulations of wind loads on a container ship, validation with wind-tunnel measurements and an analysis of the impact of geometrical simplifications. For the validation, CFD simulations are performed in a narrow computational domain resembling the cross-section of the wind tunnel. Blockage effects caused by the domain boundaries are studied by comparing CFD results in the wind tunnel domain and a larger domain. The average absolute difference in numerically simulated and measured total wind load on the ship ranges from 37.9% for a simple box-shaped representation of the ship to only 5.9% for the most detailed model. Modeling the spaces in-between containers on the deck shows a 10.4% average decrease in total wind load on the ship. Modeling a more slender ship hull while keeping the projected front and side area of the ship similar, yields an average decrease in total wind load of 5.9%. Blockage correction following the approach of the Engineering Sciences Date Unit underestimates the maximum lateral wind load up to 17.5%.