Body Force Propeller Model for Unsteady Surge Motion

Accurately modelling a self-propelled vessel in a large amplitude seaway with CFD is very expensive and practically out of reach. The expense is due to the very small numerical time-step required for the propeller rotation and the large mesh size. A method for accurately modelling a propeller while reducing computational cost is desirable. This paper describes the first step towards developing a body force propeller model for unsteady conditions. The purpose of this study is to train a semi-empirical algorithm to accurately prescribe the unsteady body force to model the propeller. The MOERI Container Ship propeller is analyzed with RANS CFD. Open water test data is compared to the RANS CFD results of a steady Moving Reference Frame approach. Harmonic surge is applied to a transient rotating mesh model in open water and the behind condition.