Vessel energy requirement prediction from acceleration stage towing tests on scale models

One of the most crucial tasks for naval architects is computing the energy required to meet the ship’s operational needs. When predicting a ship’s energy requirements, a series of hull resistance tests on a scale model vessel is carried out in constant speed stages, while the acceleration stage measurements are ignored. Another important factor in seakeeping analysis is the ship’s hydrodynamic added mass. The second law of dynamics states that all this valuable information, that is, the dependence of the hull resistance on the vessel’s speed and the added mass, is accessible from just one acceleration stage towing test done up to the maximum speed. Therefore, the acceleration stage, often overlooked in traditional towing experiments, can be a valuable source of information. For this reason, this work aims to generalise Froude’s scaling procedure to full-scale vessels for the accelerated stage towing tests.