Numerical Models and Methods in Ships Hydrodynamic Design

The ship design has to face with complex, multidisciplinary problems ranging from real engineering applications to the understanding of basic physical phenomena. As a consequence, a comprehensive explanation of ships design is a challenging task. On the contrary, the aim of this chapter is to provide a brief introduction to only the hydrodynamic aspects of the ships design, in particular the focus being the modern computational approaches. Generally, the study of ships hydrodynamics is divided into three main areas [8]: 1) resistance and propulsion, 2) seakeeping and 3) manoeuvring. The former area can be considered as the fundamental one (also from an historical point of view), while the latter two have gained importance only in the last century when the physical knowledge and the technical ability have allowed their investigation. Many approaches are possible to study ships hydrodynamics: 1) experimental, 2) empirical and 3) mathematical approaches.