Optimization of ships in shallow water with viscous flow computations and surrogate modeling

Shallow water effects change the flow around a ship significantly which can affect the optimum design of the hull. This paper describes a study into the optimization of the aft ship region for various water depths. The research focuses on variations of the following parameters of a hull form: The athwart ship’s propeller location, the tunnel top curvature, the flat-of-bottom shape in the stern region and the stern bilge radius. All hull form variants are evaluated in 3 different water depths using a viscous flow solver, and a surrogate model is created for each water depth. Pareto plots are used to present the trade-off between the optimization for one or another water depth. Finally, specific hull forms are chosen and the differences in flow behavior among hull forms and water depths are explained.