Numerical study on breaking phenomena of ships’ waves in narrow and shallow waterways

The environmental impact of a ships waves, such as the risk of erosion of coasts and riverbanks, and unacceptable ship movements in a restricted waterway, is now a significant ship design criterion. Therefore, it is necessary to predict ship-wave phenomena accurately in a restricted waterway. In this study, a numerical investigation of the breaking phenomena of a ships waves in restricted waterways was carried out. Incompressible Navier–Stokes and continuity equations were employed. The equations are discretized by a finite-difference method in a curvilinear coordinate system. The interface capturing method was applied to simulation of a ships waves, including wave-breaking. A modification of the level-set method is proposed to find the free surface shape clearly and without difficulty of the implemation of the boundary conditions for the distance function. In order to obtain a high resolution of wave height, a constrained interpolated profile (CIP) algorithm is adopted. In order to check the advantage of the CIP method, computations by two numerical methods, the CIP and the 3rd-order up-wind scheme, were compared. The computations for a Wigley hull in restricted waterways were performed and compared with experiments. The phenomena of ships waves in restricted waterways are discussed in order to understand the mechanism of wave-breaking in relation to the change in water depth along a waterway.     

Application of Ant System to network design problem

Network design problem (NDP) is the problem of choosing from among a set of alternative projects which optimizes an objective (e.g., minimizes total travel time), while keeping consumption of resources (e.g., budget) within their limits. This problem is difficult to solve, because of its combinatorial nature and nonconvexity of the objective function. Many algorithms are presented to solve the problem more efficiently, while trading-off accuracy with computational speed. This increase in speed stems from certain approximations in the formulation of the problem, decomposition, or heuristics. This study adapts a meta – heuristic approach to solve NDP, namely Ant System (AS). The algorithm is first designed, and then calibrated to solve NDP for the Sioux Falls test network. The behavior of the algorithm is then investigated. The result seems encouraging.     

Modelling route choice behaviour in multi-modal transport networks

The paper presents new findings on the influence of multi-modal trip attributes on the quality and competitiveness of inter-urban multi-modal train alternatives. The analysis covers the entire trip from origin to destination, including access and egress legs to and from the train network. The focus is on preferences for different feeder modes, railway station types and train service types as well as on the relative influence of time elements and transfer penalties. Data from dedicated surveys are used including individual objective choice sets of 235 multi-modal homebound trips in which train is the main transport mode. The observed trips have origins and destinations within the Rotterdam–Dordrecht region in The Netherlands with an average total trip time of 50 minutes. Hierarchical Nested Logit models are estimated to take account of unobserved similarities between alternatives at the home-end and the activity-end of the trip respectively, resulting in two-level nesting structures which differentiate between intercity (IC) and non-intercity railway station types at the upper level and between transit and private access modes at the lower level. In order to reflect the multi-dimensional structure of the data a more advanced so-called Multi-Nested GEV model according to the Principles of Differentiation has been estimated which significantly improves the explanatory power and stresses the importance of the home-end of the multi-modal trip.     

Rural mobility and mode choice: Evidence from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey

This article uses data from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) to compare travel behavior in rural and urban areas of the U.S. As expected, the car is the overwhelmingly dominant mode of travel. Over 97% of rural households own at least one car vs. 92% of urban households; 91% of trips are made by car in rural areas vs. 86% in urban areas. Regardless of age, income, and race, almost everyone in rural areas relies on the private car for most travel needs. Mobility levels in rural areas are generally higher than in urban areas. That results from the more dispersed residences and activity sites in rural areas, which increase trip distances and force reliance on the car. Somewhat surprisingly, the rural elderly and poor are considerably more mobile than their urban counterparts, and their mobility deficit compared to the rural population average is strikingly less than for the urban elderly and poor compared to the urban average. Data limitations prevented a measurement of accessibility, however, and it seems likely that rural areas, by their very nature, are less accessible than urban areas, especially for the small percentage of car-less poor and elderly households.     

Preference Heterogeneity and Willingness to Pay for Travel Time Savings

We examined different model specifications to detect the presence of preference heterogeneity in a mode choice context. The specification that worked best allows for both systematic and random variations in tastes, with parameters obtained at the individual level using Bayesian methods. Subjective values of travel time (SVT) and expected individual compensated variation were derived and aggregated to obtain measures of social welfare. Results suggest that the benefit measures, both at the individual and at the social level, are sensitive to preference heterogeneity assumptions. SVT and welfare changes derived from travel time reductions could be underestimated if the traditional assumption of taste homogeneity is made (we detected differences up to 30% in both types of measures). We also obtained an empirical value for the error made when evaluating changes in social welfare using an approximation of the expected individual compensated variation (expressed as a function of individual SVT) rather than its exact expression.     

Multioutput analysis of cargo handling firms: An application to a Spanish port

Cargo handling in ports is a multioutput activity, as freight can arrive in many forms such as containers, bulk, rolling stock, or non-containerised general cargo. In this paper, the operation of cargo handling firms in a Spanish port is analysed through the estimation of a multioutput cost model that uses monthly data on three representative firms located at the Las Palmas port. This permits the calculation of product specific marginal costs, economies of scale (general and by firm) and economies of scope, which help identifying optimal pricing policies and the potential cost advantages of increasing production.     

Acoustic excitation of hull surfaces by propeller sources

We present preliminary results from our new ship motion model that includes both strong and weak three-dimensional interactions between environmental surface waves and ship bodies in arbitrary water depth. The linear solutions of steady flow using the new model agree well with those obtained using the Green function methods. When the Froude number Fn is large, the fully nonlinear solutions of our model are significantly different from linear solutions, even in calm water. The interactions between the ship and incident gravity waves are completely different from those in linear solutions even with small Fn and moderate-amplitude surface waves (e.g., Fn = 0.25 and a significant wave height of about 1–3m).     

New generic mathematical model to predict hydrodynamic interaction effects for overtaking maneuvers in simulators

To improve the formulation of ship–ship interaction forces and moments in a mathematical model of a ship maneuvring simulator, we developed a new generic mathematical model for the overtaking maneuver. This process involves using the numerical results, which provide a potentially complete set of data from which (within the constraints of the numerical modelling) everything necessary can be acquired. We found that the new generic mathematical model is as accurate as the numerical model. It is also more accessible to a navigator, master, or pilot, who could use it on a palmtop computer by keying in a few numberical estimates of the size, position, and speed of the neighboring ship and receive almost instant aneous results, giving time for a refined strategy to be validated if necessary. These results can also readily be used by simulation program developers to simulate the worst possible scenarios.     

Hydrodynamic optimization of ship hull forms in shallow water

A computational method for improving hull form in shallow water with respect to wave resistance is presented. The method involves coupling ideas from two distinct research fields: numerical ship hydrodynamics and nonlinear programming techniques. The wave resistance is estimated by means of Morinos panel method, which is extended to free surface flow and considers the influence of finite depth on the wave resistance of ships. This is linked to the optimization procedure of the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique, and an optimum hull form can be obtained through a series of iterations giving some design constraints. Sinkage is an important factor in shallow water, and this method considers sinkage as a hydrodynamic design constraint. The optimization procedure developed is demonstrated by selecting a Wigley (C _B = 0.444) hull and the Series 60 (C _B = 0.60) hull, and new hull forms are obtained at Froude number 0.316. The Froude number specified corresponds to a lower than critical speed since most of the ships operating in shallow water move below their critical speed. The numerical results of the optimization procedure indicate that the optimized hull forms yields a reduction in wave resistance.