URANS simulations for a high-speed transom stern ship with breaking waves

An exploratory study of high-speed surface ship flows is performed to identify modelling and numerical issues, to test the predictive capability of an unsteady RANS method for such flows, to explain flow features observed experimentally, and to document results obtained in conjunction with the 2005 ONR Wave Breaking Workshop. Simulations are performed for a high-speed transom stern ship (R/V Athena I) at three speeds Froude number (Fr) = 0.25, 0.43 and 0.62 with the URANS code CFDSHIP-IOWA, which utilizes a single-phase level set method for free surface modelling. The two largest Fr are considered to be high-speed cases and exhibit strong breaking plunging bow waves. Structured overset grids are used for local refinement of the unsteady transom flow at medium speed and for small scale breaking bow and transom waves at high-speeds. All simulations are performed in a time accurate manner and an examination of time histories of resistance and free surface contours is used to assess the degree to which the solutions reach a steady state. The medium speed simulation shows a classical steady Kelvin wave pattern without breaking and a wetted naturally unsteady transom flow with shedding of vortices from the transom corner. At higher speeds, the solutions reach an essentially steady state and display intense bow wave breaking with repeated reconnection of the plunging breaker with the free surface, resulting in multiple free surface scars. The high-speed simulations also show a dry transom and an inboard breaking wave, followed by outboard breaking waves downstream. In comparison to an earlier dataset, resistance is well predicted over the three speeds. The free surface predictions are compared with recent measurements at the two lowest speeds and show good agreement for both non-breaking and breaking waves.