Optimal Shape Design of a Surface Combatant with Reduced Wave Pattern

Optimal design techniques have received considerable attention in many industrial contests: on contrast, the application of automatic optimization to the hydrodynamic ship design has not yet reached the same maturity. Nevertheless, numerical tools, combining together modern computational fluid dynamics and optimization methods, can aid the ship designer, enhancing the operational performances and reducing development and construction costs. Moreover, specific problems that arise during the design phase could be corrected with the aid of a properly defined optimization problem solution. In this paper, a new approach to the design methodology, involving together designer experience and optimization strategies, is presented. The forebody geometry of a frigate ship, whose original design produced steep bow wave and consequently hydrodynamic noise near the sonar dome due to breaking, has been modified to reduce wave height and suppress the breaking. The numerical optimised geometry has been produced and tested against the original design to experimentally assess the validity of the procedure.