Numerical and Experimental Study of Flow Field between the Main Hull and Demi-Hull of a Trimaran

Abstract

The interactions between the main hull and demi-hull of trimarans have been arousing increasing attention, and detailed circumferential flow fields greatly influence trimaran research. In this research, the unsteady wake flow field of a trimaran was obtained by Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations on the basis of the viscous flow principles with consideration of the heaving and pitching of the trimaran. Then, we designed an experimental method based on particle-image velocimetry (PIV) and obtained a detailed flow field between the main hull and demi-hull of the trimaran. A trimaran model with one demi-hull made of polycarbonate material with 90% light transmission rate and a refractive index 1.58 (close to that of water 1.33) was manufactured as the experiment sample. Using polycarbonate material, the laser-sheet light-source transmission and high-speed camera recording problems were effectively rectified. Moreover, a nonstandard calibration was added into the PIV flow field measurement system. Then, we established an inverse three-dimensional (3D) distortion coordinate system and obtained the corresponding coordinates by using optics calculations. Further, the PIV system spatial mapping was corrected, and the real flow field was obtained. The simulation results were highly consistent with the experimental data, which showed the methods established in this study provided a strong reference for obtaining the detailed flow field information between the main hull and demi-hull of trimarans.