EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF A PIER ON SHIP TRAJECTORIES IN CURRENTS

A study is presented of the effect of a pier on ship trajectories in currents. The current flow field around the pier is investigated. Experiments on ship manoeuvring and drift motion in the vicinity of a rectangular pier were carried out in a tank. Different current velocities and current angles were taken into account. The characteristics of the deviations of the ship trajectories from the initial course around the pier are investigated. Experimental findings indicate that the minimum required distance for safety navigation becomes larger with an increase of the current velocity. To obtain the details of continuous three-dimensional flow field around a pier, numerical simulation based on CFD calculations is conducted. The validity of the numerical simulation is demonstrated by comparison with experimental results.