Hydrodynamic Analysis of Trimaran Vessels

Trimaran vessels are developed for different applications and hydrodynamic behavior of such vessels is different than usual mono-hulls. In this paper hydrodynamic resistance and maneuvering of a trimaran with Wigley body form are investigated. The effects of outriggers position in four different longitudinal and two transverse locations are studied. For hydrodynamic simulations a CFD code has been developed and used. This code is capable for simulating three dimensional, time dependent, two phases, viscous flow coupled with rigid body motion. Formulation and solution algorithm are described in detail. Different case studies have been performance and numerical results have shown good agreement with experimental data. Based on resistance and maneuvering simulation of the trimaran vessels different conclusion are made. The results show that positions of outriggers have great effect on resistance and maneuverability of trimaran. The present method can be further employed to investigate other hydrodynamic qualities of trimaran vessels.