• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.858-876
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• 2021

Although widely used, the design of the bulbous bow for ships has been difficult due to the complex interference between the wave system generated by the bulb and the wave system of the ship hull. Until now, a bulbous bow has been often designed using Kracht charts, which were established based on model test data, but these charts apply only to ships with a block coefficient C_B = 0.56-0.82, Froude number Fn = 0.20-0.40, and the obtained bulb sizes are only close to optimal. This paper presents a new method for the optimal design of bulbous bow, starting from the design of an initial bulb using Kracht charts for ships with any block coefficient or Froude number, then resizing this initial bulb to define the optimal bulb sizes based on a multi-objective function of the required power reduction, and a combined solution of Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis and surrogate models. This study was applied to a fishing vessel FAO 75, which has been model tested and used to design steel fishing vessels in Vietnam recently. The obtained quantitative results showed the same trend as the theory and practice, with a reduction of the ship's required power by about 14%.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.671-679
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• 2010

This paper introduces a new hull form design method for the bow of a full ship, by actively applying the relation between the fore-body hull form and its wave resistance characteristics. For the hull form design, the Series 60($C_B=0.8$) hull is chosen as the parent ship, and Kracht's charts are used to determine the parameters of the bulbous bow in the early stages of hull form design. Several hull forms have been tested in order to obtain enough hull form variations with various bow shapes and design parameters in the search of the best design. In order to investigate the resistance characteristics of the designed hull forms, numerical simulations with corresponding model tests have been rigorously performed. For the numerical simulations, the Marker-density method is employed to track the nonlinear phenomena of the free surface(program IUBW). Model tests have also been performed to achieve an improved research performance using the designed hulls. Both numerical and experimental results show that the wave resistance of the hull forms can be effectively diminished if the bows are designed using the method introduced in this research. It is also expected that this research can facilitate better productivity in hull form design, especially at the preliminary design stage of a full ship type vessel.