Numerical simulation of resistance performance according to surface roughness in container ships

Abstract In recent years, oil prices have continued to be low owing to the development of unconventional resources such as shale gas, coalbed methane gas, and tight gas. However, shipping companies are still experiencing difficulties because of recession in the shipping market. Hence, they devote considerable effort toward reducing operating costs. One of the important parameters for reducing operating costs is the frictional resistance of vessels. Generally, a vessel is covered with paint for smoothing its surface. However, frictional resistance increases with time owing to surface roughness, such as that caused by fouling. To prevent this, shipping companies periodically clean or repaint the surfaces of vessels using analyzed operating data. In addition, studies using various methods have been continuously carried out to identify this phenomenon such as fouling for managing ships more efficiently. In this study, numerical simulation was used to analyze the change in the resistance performance of a ship owing to an increase in surface roughness using commercial software, i.e., Star-CCM+, which solves the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible and viscous flow. The conditions for numerical simulation were verified through comparison with experiments, and these conditions were applied to three ships to evaluate resistance performance according to surface roughness.