Preliminary analysis for a circulating water channel using CFD

Abstract

Sustainability in shipping includes improved designs that reduce power consumption. This requires advanced experimental techniques for hull form and propulsor development. A Circulating Water Channel (CWC) is used to generate a controlled flow environment and is used for various hydrodynamic research activities including flow around ships besides predicting its maneuvering behavior, studies for fishing nets, etc. While the experimental facilities such as towing tank facility, sea keeping and maneuvering basin are expensive, a relative low cost CWC, recognized by the ITTC community, is designed to facilitate academic and research activities and better flow studies. A preliminary Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis is carried out to minimize the variation of flow velocity through the guide vanes and across the width and study means of improving the flow uniformity in the test section of the CWC. A full scale CWC is modeled in commercially available software Altair Hyperworks 11.0 and a mesh is generated for the same. A CFD Analysis is carried out for 85°, 90°and 95° vane angles for an inlet velocity of 1.5 m/s. The results obtained are used to analyze and improve the flow uniformity in the test section of the CWC.