Investigation of water depth and basin wall effects on KVLCC2 in manoeuvring motion using viscous-flow calculations

The objective of the NATO AVT-161 working group is to assess the capability of computational tools to aid in the design of air, land and sea vehicles. For sea vehicles, a study has been initiated to validate tools that can be used to simulate the manoeuvrability or seakeeping characteristics of ships. This article is part of the work concentrating on manoeuvring in shallow water. As benchmark case for the work, the KVLCC2 tanker from MOERI was selected. At INSEAN, captive PMM manoeuvring tests were conducted with a scale model of the vessel for various water depths. Several partners in the AVT group have conducted RANS calculations for a selected set of manoeuvring conditions and water depths for the bare hull. Each partner was asked to use their best practice and own tools to prepare the computations and run their flow codes. Specific instructions on the post-processing were given such that the results could be compared easily. The present article discusses these results. Detailed descriptions of the approach, assumptions, and verification and validation studies are given. Comparisons are made between the computational results and with the experiments. Furthermore, flow features are discussed.