A novel CFD approach for the prediction of ride control system response on wave-piercing catamaran in calm water

Ride Control Systems (RCS) on high-speed vessels help improve passenger comfort and mitigate dynamic structural loads. Incat Tasmania Wave-Piercing Catamarans (WPC) use RCS consisting of a central T-foil, and a stern tab on each deli-hull. Previous towing tank studies on a 2.5 m model of a 112 m WPC have demonstrated significant reductions in motions with the use of a T-foil and stern tabs. To extend this work, this study examines the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to predict the ship's response with RCS implemented. The model-scale WPC was simulated in calm water conditions, traveling at 2.89 m/s (Fr∼0.6), with step responses applied at the T-foil and stern tabs, to determine the trim and sinkage. The T-foil was implemented in CFD using two methods: 1) Overset mesh; 2) Forcing function. By replacing the geometric mesh with a lift force coefficient and forcing function, the setup difficulty and computational cost were reduced. Only about 7% difference was observed between CFD and experiments, but no significant difference was found between the methods of overset mesh and forcing function. This has proven the ability of CFD to predict vessel responses to RCS step changes in calm water, and the simplified forcing function method is recommended.