In this study, the ducted propeller has been numerically investigated under oblique flow, which is crucial and challenging for the design and safe operation of thruster driven vessel and dynamic positioning (DP) system. A Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model has been first evaluated in the quasi-steady investigation on a single ducted propeller operating in open water condition, and then a hybrid RANS/LES model is adapted for the transient sliding mesh computations. A representative test geometry considered here is a marine model thruster which is discretized with structured hexahedral cells, and the gap between the blade tip and nozzle is carefully meshed to capture the flow dynamics. The computational results are assessed by a systematic grid convergence study and compared with the available experimental data. As a part of novel contribution, multiple incidence angles from 15 • to 60 • have been analyzed with varying advance coefficients. The main emphasis has been placed on the hydrodynamic loads that act on the propeller blades and nozzle as well as their variation with different configurations. The results reveal that while the nozzle absorbs much effort from the oblique flow, the imbalance between blades at different positions is still noticeable. Such unbalance flow dynamics on the blades and the nozzle has a direct implication on the variation of thrust and torque of a marine thruster.
Open boundaries (OBs) are usually unavoidable in numerical coastal circulation simulations. At OBs, an appropriate open boundary condition (OBC) is required so that outgoing waves freely pass to the exterior without creating reflections back into the interior of the computational domain. In this paper, the authors derive, based on the shallow-water equations including bottom friction and neglecting Coriolis effect and by means of nonlinear characteristic analysis, an OBC formulation with two predictive parameters, phase speed c r , and decay time T f . Simple idealized tests are performed to demonstrate the proposed OBC's excellent skills in elimination of unwanted reflections at OBs when the motion is periodic, as assumed in its theoretical derivation. It turns out that the formulas for the two OBC parameters become independent of period in the limit of small friction and/or short period. This feature is used to derive an OBC applicable when information about the typical period of the motion to be simulated is unavailable. Simple, idealized tests of this period independent OBC demonstrate its ability to afford excellent results, even when the limitations inherent in its derivation are exceeded. Finally, the OBC is applied in more realistic simulations, including Coriolis effects of 2D tidal flows, and is shown to yield excellent results, especially for residual flows.
During transit, a drillship moonpool creates added resistance that can be more than 50% of the total resistance and hence significantly increase the fuel consumption. This paper reports a real case study for reducing moonpool added resistance by model tests and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Model test data show that, unlike conventional ships that experience nearly constant resistance, a drillship resistance presents largely fluctuating behaviour. In CFD validation, the physics based CFD best practices are applied for resistance predictions. The largely fluctuating resistance is well captured in simulations. It is found from flow visualizations of the large amount of CFD simulation results that the high moonpool induced added resistance is mainly attributed to the vortices shed from the moonpool front wall, which enter into the moonpool and impinge on the rear wall. The CFD predicted mean resistance are in good agreement with the model test data, within 3% difference for a wide range of speeds. The well validated CFD tool is applied to study the effects of moonpool dimensions on the added resistance. The results of parametric study reveal a design principle that smaller moonpool dimension results in smaller added resistance. Through comprehensive CFD parametric study, a universal design principle and CFD best practice are established for industry applications.
Open boundaries (OBs) are usually unavoidable in numerical coastal circulation simulations. At OBs, appropriate open boundary conditions (OBCs) are required and a good OBC should be able to let outgoing waves freely pass to the exterior of a computational domain without creating reflections at the OBs. In the present study, a methodology has been developed to predict two parameters, phase speed c ୰ and decay time T , in a standard OBC formulation, so that the OBC is significantly improved compared to commonly used existing OBCs with specified c ୰ and T . For the conditions where wave period is unknown, the OBC with approximated c ୰ and T may be applied and a test reveals that this OBC is able to yield good results in typical coastal flow conditions. In addition, a Swing-Door Boundary Condition (SDBC) is proposed and tested for application at an offshore open boundary where both incoming and outgoing waves exist.
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