Improved formula for estimating added resistance of ships in engineering applications

The authors previously introduced a semi-empirical formula that enabled fast estimation of the added resistance of ships in head waves, and in this study the formula is further refined for easy use in engineering applications. It includes an alternative ship draft correction coefficient, which better accounts for the wave pressure decay with ship’s draft. In addition, it only uses the speed and main characteristics of the ship and wave environment as input, and has been simplified to the extent that it can be readily processed using a pocket calculator. Extensive validations are conducted for different ship types at low to moderate speeds in various typical irregular sea conditions, and encouraging results are obtained. This relevant and topical research lies within the framework of the recent IMO MEPC.232(65) (2013) EEDI guidelines for estimating the minimum powering of ships in adverse weather conditions, which specify for the use of simple methods in current Level 2 assessment within engineering applications.