Systematic Model Tests on Ship – Bank Interaction Effects

During the last decade ship sizes have been increasing but the fairways these ships are sailing are seldom expanded at the same rate. As a result the restricted dimensions of these fairways increasingly influence the vessel’s hydrodynamics. The vicinity of banks induces forces and moments so a ship’s bow will be pushed away from the closest bank, resistance and sinkage will change and a lateral force will act on her. All these hydrodynamic phenomena, so-called bank effects, adversely modify the ship’s manoeuvring behaviour. At the Towing Tank for Manoeuvres in Shallow Water (cooperation Flanders Hydraulics Research – Ghent University, Belgium) an elaborated test program on bank effects has been carried out. In the presented paper a limited selection of measured model test data will be made available for validation of mathematical models, numerical calculations or CFD. Based upon the entire test program a mathematical model for predicting bank effects will be proposed and some applications of this mathematical model shown.