Computation of Flow around Wigley Hull in Shallow Water with Muddy Seabed

Gao, Z.; Yang, H., and Xie, M., 2015. Computation of flow around Wigley hull in shallow water with muddy seabed.

The maintenance cost of approach channel can be significantly reduced by utilizing the nautical bottom concept, in which the fluid mud layer is treated as a part of water depth. The positioning of nautical bottom mainly focuses on the mud's physical characteristics. Little attention is paid to the effect of fluid mud on the hydrodynamic performance of the ship. In this study, a commercial Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes solver, FLUENT, is used to simulate flow field around a Wigley hull in shallow water with muddy seabed. The air-water and water-mud interfaces are captured by the volume of fluid method. The renormalization group k-ε model with enhanced wall treatment is employed for turbulence modeling. The constitutive relation of fluid mud is simulated by using the modified Herschel-Bulkley model. Based on the numerical simulation, the effects of forward speed and mud thickness on ship resistance and undulations of air-water and water-mud interfaces are investigated.