URANSE-Based Numerical Prediction for the Free Roll Decay of the DTMB Ship Model

Abstract

In the present study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to investigate the roll decay of the benchmark surface combatant DTMB-5512 ship model appended with bilge keels, sailing in calm water at different speeds (Fr = 0.0, 0.138, 0.2, 0.28 and 0.41) and with different initial roll angles. The numerical simulations are carried out using the viscous flow solver ISIS-CFD of the FINETM/Marine software provided by NUMECA. The solver uses the finite volume method to build the spatial discretization of the transport equation to solve the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes equations. Two-phase flow approach is applied to model the air–water interface, where the free surface is captured using the volume of fluid method. The closure to turbulence is achieved by making use of the blended Menter shear stress transport and the explicit algebraic Reynolds stress models. First, a systematic validation against the experimental data at medium speed and initial roll angle of 10° are performed; then, the effect of the initial roll angle and ship speed is later studied. Numerical errors and uncertainties are assessed using grid and time step convergence study based on Richardson Extrapolation method. A special focus on the flow in the vicinity of the bilge keels during the simulation is also investigated and presented in the form of velocity contours and vortical structure formations. The resemblance between the CFD results and experimental data for roll motion and flow characteristics are within a satisfactory congruence; however, some discrepancies are recorded for the over predicted roll amplitudes in the second and, sometimes, the third roll cycle, which appeared mostly in the cases with high initial roll angles.