AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE WATER DEPTH EFFECTS ON THE KVLCC2 TANKER

An experimental study of the maneuverability characteristics of a VLCC ship in shallow, medium and infinite water depth conditions is presented. Several model speeds and depth-to-draft ratios have been investigated at the INSEAN towing tank using the INSEAN PMM mechanism, but only one speed is presented here. Hydrodynamic forces and moments have been measured and the collected data was used to estimate the influence of the water depth on the hydrodynamic force, moments and linear derivatives. The measured data is useful to better understand the physical mechanisms involved in the maneuverability of a ship in shallow water regime and it has been used as benchmark data at the SIMMAN 2008 workshop.