Designing Navy Hull Forms for Fuel Economy

Abstract

During initial hull form design, a multitude of requirements needs to be met. Among these are mission, ship size, armament, communications, stability, speed, sea keeping, etc. Tools such as ASSET are used to arrive at a design solution that will satisfy all these requirements. However, at this early design stage, attention needs to be given to the hull form shape, and its impact upon fuel consumption. Rising fuel costs and the need to conserve energy have mandated that Navy designs become more “energy efficient.” This paper documents a new design metric “CPE” for evaluating the resistance of any hull design. A CPE database is developed from historic model test data residing in the U.S. Navy Hull Design Database System (HDDS). CPE compares the resistance of a hull form to that of a similar Taylor Standard Series hull form. The paper also introduces a new hull form optimization computer program developed by Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and applies this program to show the potential for hull form improvement and fuel cost savings.

Scheduling combat logistics force replenishments at sea for the US Navy

“…Initial testing with historical operational data showed that there was an opportunity for significant cost savings. The U.S. Navy is making large investments in research into new hull coatings, changes to engineering configurations, hydro form designs and similar measures (eg, Karafiath, McCallum, & Hendrix, ; OSD, ). In these areas, the Navy regards an improvement in fuel efficiency of less than one percent as a major breakthrough.…”