A Development of New Device for Bow Thruster Tunnel Grids

For protection of the thruster against mechanical damage and reduction of tunnel resistance at ship forward speed, the tunnel grids are normally installed. Some of ship operators however, have a strong distrust of the protective function of the tunnel grids and so they do not want to install the protective grids for higher thruster efficiency. Since the grids should be installed at very close to the side shell as far as possible in due consideration of flow direction to minimize additional resistance induced by tunnel openings, it has been too hard and time consuming work to install the grids on the curved and chamfered tunnel entrances considering its relatively low resistance reduction effect. DSME (Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd) developed a substituting device named TG (Tunnel Guides) for bow thruster tunnel grids which is characterized by higher resistance reduction, higher thruster efficiency and easy to installation. This paper provides the principle idea of the TG with short history of the development using CFD calculations and model experiments in MOERI (former KRISO).

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