Hydrodynamic performance of KCS ship in steady turning: experimental and numerical studies

The turning performance of a ship is an important aspect of its maneuverability, and accurately predicting the hydrodynamic forces during ship turning motion is of great significance for the safe maneuvering design of ships. This paper investigated the hydrodynamic performance of a KRISO container ship in steady turning using experimental and numerical approaches. The rotating arm tests were carried out in rotating arm basin of Zhejiang University, while the numerical simulations were conducted in commercial computational fluid dynamics software. Hydrodynamic forces and moments, hull surface wave height, wave patterns, and vorticity are studied under different velocities, radii, and drift angles. The results show that the increase in velocity has a significant impact on the forces and moments of the hull. The changes in longitudinal and transverse forces reflect the complex fluid dynamic interactions between the hull and water. Under conditions of small radius and large drift angle, the hull experiences greater forces and moments, indicating that stability and maneuverability will be more challenged during sudden turns. This study can provide experimental data and numerical simulation references for the research of ship turning maneuvers.