Effect of an Interceptor on the aft-body flow.

Although more associated with semi-planing motor yachts and other fast craft, such as patrol boats, the Interceptor is now being deployed on several models of large merchant vessels tested in MARIN basins. Report plots the progress of the Interceptor as demand grows.

Intercepting the Interceptor

Jaap Allema J.Allema@marin.nl n Interceptor is a metal plate which is fitted vertically to the transom of a ship, covering the main breadth of the transom and protruding with its lower edge several centimetres below the transom. The principle is to create a virtual trim wedge below the transom. The protruding section below the transom causes a local pressure increase with a deadwater area in front of it. The flow over the aft-body of the ship then bends downward when approaching this high pressure deadwater area, thus creating a similar lift effect as a conventional trim wedge on the flow near the transom (see illustration). An Interceptor on small craft can be moved up and down by a hydraulic or electric system and can be adjusted to create the optimal flow deflection for every ship speed. In this respect it has some advantages from adjustable trim flaps or tabs but flaps are protruding behind the transom and have a small width. For small, fast craft with stern drive or outboard propulsion, this creates additional drag and reduced lift. The Interceptor can be used over the full transom width and with any type of propulsion.

Ship model for RCI fitted with adjustable Interceptor plate. 37056

Cruise ship hull design

Although the Interceptor was developed for relatively small, fast craft, recently Royal Caribbean Cruise Line asked their Finnish consultant, Deltamarin and MARIN, to optimise a new cruise ship hull design. All known performance

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Juha Hanhinen,Deltamarin.

at MARIN
increasing appendages such as ducktails and trim wedges were tested but Deltamarin also proposed to investigate an Interceptor. And surprisingly, it also worked successfully for a large ship. After a series of trim wedge tests, the best Interceptor position supplied 2% more power reduction than the best wedge. Deltamarin then arranged full-scale boundary layer flow calculations with its alliance partner, Safety at Sea Ltd for the aftbody with this device. They found that the flow started to bend downwards when the flow approached the plate at a distance equal to the height of the Interceptor below the transom. So a final propulsion test was done where the Interceptor plate was used to model a 45 degree wedge, with a length similar to the height of the Interceptor below the transom, thus filling in the deadwater area. When this Interceptor wedge was tested, it appeared to yield a further 1% power reduction. After this initial success, many more cruise ships and ferries were tested with an Interceptor. But the Interceptor was not so successful with all ships. Its success on large displacement merchant vessels was not so straight forward. Some tests showed only small performance improvements and on some ships there was no, or even a small negative effect. MARIN intends to undertake further investigation to be able to give the best advice on these type of aft-body flow optimisation devices.

Deltamarin: first Interceptor success

Reports asks Juha Hanhinen from the Finnish consultant Deltamarin, what made the firm decide to deploy the Interceptor on large, relatively-slow, merchant ships. Hanhinen admits that initially it was a desperate measure.I was so frustrated after testing so many trim wedges on this particular aft-body without being able to fix the wake behind the transom.I was expecting improved flow/wake behind the transom but I wasnt expecting improvements in powering. I was just hoping that trying something completely different would bring fresh ideas.The boundary layer flow calculations more or less confirmed what Deltamarin was expecting about the behaviour of the device.There were no major scale effects. The Finnish company hopes that the Interceptor will be applicable to more or less all transom stern ships.It would definitely make life easier for designers as the transom type of flow is quite difficult to control.We are almost certain that it works well on faster transom-type sterns. But we hope that after learning more about the flow mechanics, it will also work well with slower transom sterns. So far, the understanding is still very limited , he points out.Here, more RANScalculations will help and experimental (model scale) feedback is very important at an early stage. The transom type of flow is fairly constant at speeds high enough (close to Fn 0.2 and above) despite the motions of the hull, so he is not expecting any nasty surprises there. However, low speeds can cause some parasite drag. For large ships the interceptor will have to be fixed but luckily the additional drag at low speeds is quite small. Hanhinen expects that the performance improvements found in model tests will be also be found for full-scale ships but the first full-scale trials are yet to be made.I remember the first time we tried a trim wedge on a Panamax size newbuilding cruiser.The gain according to the first scale tests was a bit questionable but in real life it turned out to be a major success.