The mesh influence in fluid flow

Abstract

The principal objective of this study is to adapt the mesh of the computational fluid dy-namics to obtain a good accuracy. In the past, the experimental results were a good bench-mark for predicting ship water resistance, but due to the evolution of technology, mathematical flow patterns can be solved by applying the RANS equations. The towing test results can be applied for a low Froude number, but for a high Froude number, all phenomena that appear along the simulation aren’t relevant because the scale effects cannot provide an accurate simulation of the phenomena for a real ship (scale 1:1). Hence, this study presents methods of improving the mesh quality by making comparisons with the experimental tests, and also presents the limits of the towing test results.

Keywords

• mesh adapting, multihull, ship hydrodynamic resistance.