A technique for efficient computation of steady yaw manoeuvres using CFD

Hydrodynamic loads acting on a ship can nowadays be reliably obtained from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques. In particular for the determination of the hydrodynamic coefficients of a mathematical manoeuvring model, the forces and moments on a ship sailing at a drift angle or with a yaw rate can be computed efficiently with CFD. While computations with a drift angle are relatively straightforward, computations involving a yaw rate present a challenge. This challenge consists in how to deal with the grid, the setup and the ship encountering its own wake when rotating. A solution based on a single grid setup with consistent boundary conditions and utilising a body force wake damping zone to remedy this challenge is proposed in this paper, leading to an effective, fast, and accurate method to compute hydrodynamic loads of a ship in steady yaw manoeuvres.