Effect of Flow Liners on Ship′s Wake Simulation in a Cavitation Tunnel

Flew control devices, such as flow liners, are frequently introduced in a cavitation tunnel in order to reduce the tunnel blockage effect, when a three-dimensional wake distribution is simulated using a complete ship model or a dummy model. In order to estimate the tunnel wall effect and to evaluate the effect of flow liners on the simulated wake distribution, a surface panel method is adopted for the calculation of the flow around a ship model and flow liners installed in a rectangular test section off cavitation tunnel. Calculation results on the Sydney Express ship model show that the tunnel wall effect on the hull surface pressure distribution is negligible for less than 5% blockage and can be appreciable for more than 20% blockage. The flow liners accelerate the flow near the afterbody of the ship model, so that the pressure gradient there becomes more favorable and accordingly the boundary layer thickness would be reduced. Since the resulting wake distribution is assumed to resemble the full scale wake, flow liners can also be used to simulate an estimated full scale wake without modifying the ship model. Boundary taper calculation should be incorporated in order to correlate the calculated wake distribution with the measured one.