Parametric study of a low wake-wash inland waterways catamaran

The wake wash from passing ships can cause environmental damage. The wake wash is an important issue for naval architects and shipbuilders in concentrating on more environmentally friendly designs. This paper presents results of a parametric study of catamaran hull form to obtain low wake wash hull form configurations or low speed inland waterway boats. The study uses a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, and model experiments were carried out for validation of the CFD software set-up. The study concentrates on the asymmetric catamaran hull form. The investigation is conducted on two configurations of hull form; Flat Side Inward (FSI) and Flat Side Outward (FSO) configurations. The investigation is conducted on a hull form with a Length to Beam (LB) ratio of 12.2, 15.2 and 18.3 and a Separation to Length (SL) ratio of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4. The results based on wave height criteria at various longitudinal cuts have shown that the FSO configuration has a lower wake wash compared with the FSI configuration. Considering LB and SL ratios, hull forms with a larger separation or higher LB ratios produce lower wave heights.