Hydrodynamic Hull Form Design Using an Optimization Technique

A design procedure for a ship with minimum resistance had been developed using a numerical op-timization method called SQP (Sequential Quadratic Programming) combined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. The frictional resistance coefficient was estimated by the ITTC 1957 model-ship correlation line formula and the wave-making resistance coefficient was evaluated by the potential-flow panel method with the nonlinear free surface boundary conditions. The geometry of the hull surface was represented and modified by B-spline surface modeling technique during the optimi-zation process. The Series 60 (C B =0.60) hull was selected as a parent hull to obtain an optimized hull that produces minimum resistance. The models of the parent and optimized hull forms were tested at calm water condition in order to demonstrate the validity of the proposed methodolgy. Keywords: Hull optimization, Minimum resistance, Ranking source panel method, SQP(Sequential Quadratic Programming), B-spline surface modeling