Eliminating Drag and Optimizing Motion by Configuration Foils on Pentamaran

Hydrodynamic efficiency is important in ship design to reduce the drag and improve performance. Altering the shape of a ship and enhancing its structure are some of the most common methods to improve hydrodynamic performance. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of having dual NACA 0012 foils on a pentamaran's hydrodynamic performance in terms of drag reduction and motion control. Dual foils are configured with varying vertical spacing but are kept at a similar horizontal position. The analysis evaluated the computational and experimental investigation of total drag under foil and no-foil. The foils reduce drag by 33% over the non-foiled configuration while increasing the lift by 4.4%. Moreover, compared to the monohull, the pentamaran with double foils exhibited better motion stability, decreasing the heave by 1.1%–2.5% and pitching by 0.18%–0.3%. Overall, the research indicates that those dual foils substantially improve the pentamaran hydrodynamics—throwing some light on the potential for optimizing the multihull for fuel consumption.