A Practical Method of Prediction of Resistance for Displacement Vessels

The prediction of the total resistance of a ship is generally based on considering it to be a simple sum of the viscous resistance and the wave resistance. An experimental approach for predicting full-size ship resistance on this basis is practical but obviously has the deficiency that a model has to be built for each prototype of interest and the resulting tank tests are time consuming. On the other hand, purely theoretical calculations of the wave resistance, using, for example, the Michell theory, require relatively little computer time and give an excellent portrayal of the overall variation of the vessel resistance as a function of forward speed. Unfortunately, there are sufficient differences between this theory and the measured results to make this method impractical for design purposes. The proposal examined here is to use a data bank of experimental resistance results to modify the theoretical predictions. It is demonstrated that the technique will produce remarkably accurate resistance predictions and can take into account the effects of the water depth, any restriction of canal or river width, as well as the prismatic coefficient, and other geometric parameters.