Abstract
New experimental devices and methods to measure shaft forces of ships are proposed in this paper. The strain gauge type six-component load cell was newly designed and installed to the end of the propeller shaft. The signals generated from the sensor in the propeller rotating are transferred to the new data amplifying and processing board on the shaft and the data is transmitted to the self-made wireless receiver. To find out the characteristics of shaft forces during port and starboard turning motions in sea trial, oblique and combined yaw maneuvering tests at straight, transient, maximum yaw rate, steady conditions were performed with the model ship installed the shaft forces measuring device using circular motion tester of Samsung Ship Model Basin. Characteristics of the measured shaft forces in model tests show quantitatively good agreement with the computed values obtained by the CFD programs using the measured wake data in oblique towing conditions. In the near future, It is hoped that the estimated shaft forces for a ship from this experimental method could be validated through comparison with directly measured values of a ship.
