UNIVERSITATEA „ OVIDIUS” CONSTANŢA

FACULTATEA DE INGINERIE MECANICĂ, INDUSTRIALĂ ŞI MARITIMĂ

Specializarea: Optimizarea Tehnologiilor Portuare şi a Funcţionării Utilajelor
B-dul Mamaia 124 RO-900527 Constanţa România
Tel:40-0541-614576; 40-0241-616737; Fax:40-0241-618372

Referat
La Lb. Engleza
Ship model basin

ÎNDRUMĂTOR:
Lector Peride Daniela

Masterand:
Ing. Botez Decebal
An studiu: I

CONSTANŢA
2010-2011

Ship model basin

 A ship model basin may be defined as one of two separate yet related entities, namely:

• a physical basin or tank used to carry out hydrodynamic tests with ship models, for the
purpose of designing a new (full sized) ship, or refining the design of a ship to
improve the ship's performance at sea;

• the organization (often a company) that owns and operates such a facility.

In the second meaning, the company or authority is an engineering firm, that acts as a
contractor to the relevant shipyards, and provides hydrodynamic model tests and
numerical calculations to support the design and development of ships and offshore
structures.

The hydrodynamic test facilities present at a model basin site include at least:

• A towing tank: This is a basin, several meters wide and hundreds of meters long,
equipped with a towing carriage that runs on two rails on either side. The towing
carriage can either tow the model or follow the self-propelled model, and is equipped
with computers and devices to register or control, respectively, variables such as
speed, propeller thrust and torque, rudder angle etc. The towing tank serves for
resistance and propulsion tests with towed and self-propelled ship models to
determine how much power the engine will have to provide to achieve the speed
laid down in the contract between shipyard and ship owner. The towing tank also
serves to determine the maneuvering behavior in model scale. For this, the self-
propelled model is exposed to a series of zig-zag maneuvers at different rudder angle
amplitudes. Post-processing of the test data by means of system identification results
in a numerical model to simulate any other maneuver like Dieudonné spiral test or
turning circles. Additionally, a towing tank can be equipped with a PMM (planar
motion mechanism) or a CPMC (computerized planar motion carriage) to measure the
hydrodynamic forces and moments on ships or submerged objects under the influence
of oblique inflow and enforced motions. The towing tank can also be equipped with a
wave generator to carry out seakeeping tests, either by simulating natural (irregular)
waves or by exposing the model to a wave packet that yields a set of statistics known
as response amplitude operators (acronym RAO), that determine the ship's likely real-
life sea-going behavior when operating in seas with varying wave amplitudes and
frequencies (these parameters being known as sea states). Modern seakeeping test
 facilities can determine these RAO statistics, with the aid of appropriate computer
hardware and software, in a single test.

• Workshops: Ship model basins manufacture their ship models from wood or paraffin
with a computerized milling machine. Some of them also manufacture their model
propellers. Equipping the ship models with all drives and gauges and manufacturing
equipment for non-standard model tests are the main tasks of the workshops.

Some ship model basins have further facilities, for example:

• A maneuvering basin. This is a test facility that is wide enough to investigate

arbitrary angles between waves and the ship model, and to perform maneuvers like
turning circles, for which the towing tank is too narrow. However, some important
maneuvers like the spiral test still require even more space and still have to be
simulated numerically after system identification.

• An Ice Tank: To develop ice breaking vessels, this tank fulfills similar purposes as the
towing tank does for open water vessels. Resistance and required engine power as well
as maneuvering behavior are determined depending on the ice thickness. Also ice
forces on offshore structures can be determined. Ice layers are frozen with a special
procedure to scale down the ice crystals to model scale.

Additionally, these companies or authorities have CFD software and experience to

simulate the complicated flow around ships and their rudders and propellers
numerically. Today's state of the art does not yet allow software to replace model tests
in their entirety by CFD calculations. Also the lines design of some of the ships is
carried out by the specialists of the ship model basin, either from the beginning or by
optimizing the initial design obtained from the shipyard. The same applies to the
design of propellers.

The ship model basins worldwide are organized in the ITTC (International Towing
Tank Conference) to standardize their model test procedures.