Virtual Testbed: Simulation of Air Flow Around Ship Hull and Its Effect on Ship Motions

Strong wind causes heavy load on the ship in a seaway bending and pushing it in the direction of the wind. In this paper we investigate how wind can be simulated in the framework of Virtual testbed—a near real-time ship motion simulator. We propose simple model that describes air flow around ship hull with constant initial speed and direction which is based on the law of reflection. On the boundary the model reduces to the known model for potential flow around a cylinder, and near the boundary they are not equivalent, but close enough to visualise the effect of the hull on the flow. Then we apply this model to simulate air flow around real-world ship hull and conclude that for any real-world situation ship roll angle and ship speed caused by the wind is small to not cause capsizing, but large enough to be considered in onboard intelligent systems that determine real roll, pitch and yaw angles during ship operation and similar applications.