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SHIPS AND WATER
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers, except; for the
quotation of brief passages in reviews.
ISBN 1 870077 06 7
!8t.
CONTENTS
Drawings
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Foreword
page
Chapter One The Nature f Water 1
Introduction, Density, Viscosity, Surface Tension.
88
Sources of Vibration, Damaged Propeller, Wake Effects,
Pressure Effects, Cavitation, Singing, Wave-induced Vibration,
Diagnosing Vibration Causes.
Index
iii
DRAWINGS
Fig. page
6 Broaching 24
9 Bank effects 41
10 Ship-Tug interaction 42
19 Form drag 71
iv
ILLUSTRATIONS
Spray
A destroyer at speed
Waves breaking
A hydrofoil at speed
Slab-sided construction
ACKNOWLED GEIMDE/NTS
vi
FOREWORD
Ships and Water is a exemplary book which sets out to explain what the
mariner instinctively feels in plain language. It demonstrates that the
interplay of a ship with the sea is by no means straightforward and that
what may appear as common sense when derived from living on land may
be a misleading guide to the navigator.
Having been a pilot for most of my working life in one of the world's
busiest estuarial ports, I have had to learn, tentatively and by experience,
what Mr Paffett so clearly explains in the text.
It would have been useful to have had this book when I was a young officer
and trainee pilot, Its fascination lies in the fact that those who have been
most seasoned with salt are the most likely to appreciate the subtlety of
the concepts being discussed. The plain language and unequivocal style of
the author makes this the most readable of books.
Mr Paffett was made an Honorary Fellow of The Nautical Institute for his
belief and commitment in involving the mariner in the operational design
of ships. This book demonstrates perfectly why this honour was so richly
deserved.
vii
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
We have water all about us. We drink it, we swim in it, we wash in it and
generally enjoy its benefits while giving little thought to its physical
properties.
The properties of water which mainly concern the mariner and ship
designer are density, viscosity and surface tension. (There are others, such
as specific and latent heats, refractive index, vapour pressure and so on
whichl bear upon meteorology and hence affect life at sea; but in the
preseiit discussion we shall concentrate upon the first three named).
Density
The density of a substance is the mass per unit volume, usually stated in
grams per cubic centimetre, or - more conveniently for ships - in tonnes
per cubic metre; the figure is the same. The density of pure fresh water is
close to 1-0 tonnes per cubic metre, and of seawater around 1-025 t/m3.
Seawater density varies somewhat, particularly in coastal and estuarial
waters where river water dilutes the salinity, but the figure of 1-025 t/m3
is an average for the open ocean and is usually used in the design of
seagoing vessels.
As with every other known liquid, the density of water increases with
a fall in temperature. Water, however, is unique in that it reaches a
maximum density at 4 degrees Celsius. On cooling below this the density
begins to decrease again, and the solid formed on freezing - namely, ice -
has a density even less than that of the unfrozen water, so that it floats on
the surface. If water behaved like almost eveiy other material known to the
physicist, ice would sink and navigation in high latitudes would be
complicated by a continually varying and indeterminate accretion of ice on
the seabed; charts would be practically useless and grounding a constant
danger. The relatively minor hazard from ice floes and bergs is probably an
acceptable price to pay for a predictable sea-bed.
It is worth noting that the draught of a given ship depends upon the
density of the water in which she is floating. If a ship goes from salt water
into fresh, she sinks a little into the water until the immersed vojume is
increased by about 2-5% so as to restore the buoyancy force\to the
magnitude that it had in salt water. This can be a matter of some practical
importance in the case of a ship entering an estuary or river mouth with
only a small clearance under the keel; the sinkage due to the density
change could be enough to cause grounding. >
2
The submariner has particular cause to take an interest in seawater
density. A submerged submarine has no free water-plane, so that if the
boat is to be able to hover at constant depth she must adjust matters so
that the all-up weight of the vessel is exactly equal to the buoyancy force.
The displacement volume is fixed by the construction of the vessel, so that
the submariner can only achieve the necessary balance by taking in or
discharging ballast water. If the vessel has headway some vertical force for
fine adjustment is available by operating the hydroplanes, but if she is
stationary the planes have no effect and the ballast has to be adjusted very
critically.
, Even when perfect balance has been achieved, the stopped submarine
is still in an unstable situation, arising from the compressibility of the
steel hull. If she goes deeper, the increasing hydrostatic pressure
compresses the steel hull, so decreasing its displacement volume. The
water itself is also compressed, so increasing in density. Unfortunately, the
loss in hull volume more than offsets the gain in water density with
increasing depth. Thus, if a stationary submarine sinks a small distance
she loses buoyancy and begins to accelerate down towards collapse depth;
if she'rises, she gains surplus buoyancy and accelerates towards the
surface. Successful hovering demands the ability to detect incipient
changes in depth and to make rapid small adjustments in ballasting to
check rise and fall.
The submariner has another reason for taking some interest in the
density of the water which surrounds him. Sound waves travel in straight
lines at constant speed in a medium of constant density. But the velocity
of sound varies with the density of the medium, and if this is non-uniform
the sound will travel in paths which are curved rather than straight.
Seawater density depends upon both salinity and temperature, both of
which can vary considerably with depth. One consequence is that the
beams of sound emitted by the hunting frigate's sonar transmitter may be
curved in a complex manner as they radiate from the ship; indeed they
may be refracted upwards to the surface again without reaching the depth
of the submarine. Thus it can pay both hunter and hunted to measure
and understand the ocean density distribution; the submariner can exploit
3
the refraction phenomenon to hide from the searching sonar, the frigate
officers need to know the limitations of their equipment in planning their
search pattern. Surface ships are sometimes equipped with
bathythermographs, instruments which enable them to measure the
temperature variation between keel and seabed, so that sound behaviour
in the ocean can be predicted.
Viscosity
4
This brings us back to practicalities. The mariner is engaged in
distorting a liquid, namely sea-water, at some cost in fuel bills. The
distortion takes place in the boundary layer, the layer of water adjacent to
the ship's hull plating. The skin of water immediately in contact with the
plating wets it and travels along with it at ship's speed, say 10 knots. A
few millimetres further out the water is sliding somewhat sternwards
relative to the ship, so that its speed over the ground is say 9 knots.
Further out still the water is moving at 8 knots, and so on. Eventually, a
metre br so out from the ship - depending on the ship's length and the
distance from the bow - there is no measurable movement parallel to the
ship. (Fig. 1)
From this we can see that there is a continual sliding motion of layer
across layer; cubes are being bent to lozenges and there is a continual
change of stiear strain in the water. Because the water has a finite
viscosity it follows that there must exist a shear stress. Integrated over the
whole wetted surface of the ship, this results in a total horizontal force,
exerted in the sternwards direction. This is usually referred to as the skin
friction, or the viscous drag. It represents something like 80% or more of
the total drag force on most merchant ships, the remaining 20% or less
being made up of wavemaking forces, appendage drag and so on, which
are considered in a later chapter.
5
A ship moving through the water carries with it a frictional "boundary layer".
This grows in thickness from zero at the stem to perhaps a metre or more at
the stern. The boundary layer should not be confused with the froth visible on
the sea surface; this arises mainly from the breaking of the bow wave crest.
As the skin friction, or drag of viscous origin, accounts for some 80%
or more of the fuel bill, it is not surprising that great efforts have been
made to reduce it. Useful gains have come from the pursuit of smoothness;
quite small roughnesses on a ship's bottom increase the drag significantly,
hence the efforts made over the years to prevent the growth of weed and
shells on the plating. Even organic slime has been shown to put up the
drag. Smoothness and cleanness certainly pay; however, there is a well-
defined minimum below which the skin friction cannot be reduced^ Even
with the highly-polished mirror surface sought by racing-yacht
enthusiasts, there will still be a finite shearing rate in the boundary layer,
hence a viscous shear stress and a consequent drag force on the vessel.
The most that the ordinary merchant ship operator can do is to invest in
the best available anti-fouling bottom composition, and to ensure that dry-
docking is carried out without delay when growth finally makes it
necessary.
6
Efforts are made from time to time to reduce the frictional drag below
the basic minimum by interfering with the boundary layer structure. The
most popular idea, periodically reinvented, is to inject a layer of air
between the bottom plating and the water, in order to achieve "air
lubrication". Repeated attempts to do this, on both model and full scale,
have been made without much success. The method would work if the air
could be persuaded to form a continuous thin layer between water and
bottom, but in practice the air very quickly breaks up into a stream of
discrete bubbles which roll along embedded in the boundary layer, leaving
the bottom plating as wet and as exposed to shear stress as ever. The
writer recalls attending trials of a seagoing vessel where the speed
difference between "air-on" and "air-off was not measurable.
Starfaee Tension
We have all met, at some early age, the parlour trick whereby a sewing
needle is set floating on a dish of water. The steel, we are told, is kept from
7
sinking by the surface tension of the water; and, indeed, close examination
shows that the surface of the water near to the needle is deflected
downwards, as though the needle were sitting on an elastic skin which
sags under its weight. When we go swimming, however, no supporting skin
saves us from a ducking. The phenomenon only seems observable on the
near-microscopic scale. What is this curious tension, and can it affect a
thing as large as a ship?
If our line has a length L, the force to separate the liquid is TL. If we
pull the edges apart through distance D we do mechanical work equal to
TLD, and we create a fresh surface of area LD. The energy to create unit
area of new surface is thus TLD/LD, namely T. Thus we have a second
way of regarding surface tension, namely as the energy which must be
expended in creating a new liquid surface ofunit area.
The direct forces exerted on a ship by the surface tension of the ocean
surface are minute and can be disregarded. The phenomenon cannot be
written off as irrelevant, however; surface tension begins to matter when
we come to consider seakeeping, and in particular spray generation. A
one-metre cube of water has a surface area of 6 square metres. However, if
we break this body up into one millimetre cubes the surface area will be
6,000,000,000 square millimetres or 6000 square metres, around 1112
acres. To create all this new area we have had to do significant work
against surface tension. The energy to do this is freely available ih a ship
at sea in rough weather, and it comes as no news to the mariner that a
tonne of seawater hitting the bows can easily be .dashed into one billion
spray droplets each of volume 1 cubic mm.
8
One billion spray droplets
9
Once water is broken up into small particles, the surface tension
forces tend to pull each particle into the familiar spherical drops which
reach us as rain or spray. The same forces act when we interchange the
air and the water; a small air bubble in water assumes the same spherical
shape under the action of the same surface tension forces. If a bubble is in
equilibrium the air or gas pressure inside it has to balance not only the
hydrostatic pressure of the surrounding liquid, but also the inward
pressure in its skin, much as the air pressure in a child's balloon balances
the tension in the rubber (Fig. 2). From the geometry of the sphere, we can
show that the internal pressure P to balance surface tension T is equal to
2T/R where R is the radius of the sphere. Since the surface tension T is a
follows that the bubble pressure P becomes larger as the
bubble radius becomes smaller. In the limit one needs an infinite pressure
to create a new bubble from
This has some bearing upon the phenomenon of boiling. It may be recalled
from the school physics lessons that, while tap water could be boiled in a
glass flask over a Bunsen burner easily enough, pure de-aerated distilled
10
I .
L SiBLiU:
water only boiled with a succession of bumps and bangs sometimes severe
enough to break the flask. This happened because, in the absence of
nuclear air bubbles in the water, steam bubbles could only be created by
building up a vapour pressure large enough to balance T at infinitesimal
values of R. Once a bubble was born, the pressure needed to balance T
rapidly fell with increase in R and the internal steam pressure became
suddenly available to accelerate the bubble walls outwards - hence the
bumps. Dunking a piece of dry porous ceramic in the water provided a
stream' of air bubbles of finite diameter; these served as nuclei and
enabled boiling to continue quietly. In the domestic context, water from
the kitchen tap arrives full of air bubbles and usually boils without
trouble. However, one can sometimes get a bump or two from the kettle if
one tries to reboil water which has earlier suffered prolonged boiling and
been allowed to stand.
11
are involved, as with a bubble or drop in contact with a solid surface, the
behaviour of the bubble or drop is affected not only by the surface tension
of the liquid, but also by the properties of the solid surface, in particular
its "wettability". A drop of water falling on most surfaces, a steel deck for
instance, will quickly spread out and wet the surface, but there are some
substances which are "hydrophobic" or difficult to wet, and drops of water
falling on them will roll about like marbles. Certain plastics such as PTFE
and, to a lesser extent, polyethylene, are hydrophobic.
12
CHAPTER TWO
WAVES
Ocean Waves
Waves on the ocean surface are only too familiar. They slow down the ship,
stress jthe hull and nauseate the passengers. Yet the actual mechanism of
wave propagation is a matter of great complexity, the detailed description
of which still exercises the skill of mathematicians. We discuss here those
features of ocean waves which concern directly the designers and
operators of ships.
What may not be so obvious is that there are two quite distinct
agencies acting to restore the disturbed surface to the mean level: gravity
and surface tension/The action of gravity is more clearly seen with water
in a glass U-tube; if the levels are disturbed the water will rock back and
forth until the two arms settle at the same level again. The ocean can be
thought of as a series of linked U-tubes, the swing of each being
communicated to its neighbour as energy passes from tube to tube, gravity
providing the restoring force throughout
Gravity waves and surface tension waves obey quite different laws.
> The physics of the situation is such that surface tension waves on water
are only observable on the small scale, with wavelengths of 25 mm or less,
and amplitudes of a millimetre or so. These waves, sometimes referred to
13
as ripples or capillary waves, are of no practical concern to the ship
designer, but the mariner may sometimes have seen them at sea, notably
as "cat's paws" when a light puff of wind momentarily ruffles the surface of
an otherwise dead-calm sea. It is notable that such waves damp out very
quickly, disappearing almost instantly when the breeze passes. Their
dependence upon surface tension is evidenced by their suppression when
an oil slick or other surface contaminant modifies the surface tension of
the water.
Gravity waves are the familiar ones, with wavelengths ranging from a
few centimetres to half a kilometre or more. The energy in waves comes in
the first instance from the wind. A wind commencing to blow over an
initially calm sea produces at first ripples, then short gravity waves, then
longer and higher waves, all travelling in the direction of the wind. If the
wind drops the wave trains continue travelling across the ocean. The
shorter waves damp out fairly quickly, energy being dissipated by a
viscous mechanism within the body of the wave, but the longer waves -
referred to as swell, once the wind has gone - lose their energy more
slowly, and may travel on for thousands of miles before finally spending
their energy by breaking on the shores of some distant land. The swell
surging up Cornish beaches probably drew its energy from the winds of
some Caribbean storm.
14
I8 L I u / E
Wave Propagation
Sound waves and radio waves travel at velocities which are constant for a
given medium, regardless of wavelength. Ocean waves are quite different;
the wave crest velocity depends upon the wavelength - the longer the
wave, the faster travel the crests. In deep water the crest velocity,
sometimes called the celerity, is proportional to the square root of the
wavelength. A wave 100 metres long travels at 24iu knots, a wave 400
metres long travels at 48^2 knots.
WAVELENGTH
CREST VELOCITY
GROUP VELOCITYVaC
15
The wave pattern contains four elements - the bow transverse system, the
bow divergent system, and the corresponding two systems at the stern.
16
iiSL
The mean speed of the whole train is called the group velocity, and it
can be shown that in deep water it is equal to half the celerity of the
individual crests. From mathematical hydrodynamics it can be shown that
the total energy of the wave train advances through the ocean at a speed
equal to the group velocity, not the crest celerity.
It follows from the above that a single isolated wave crest cannot
travel unchanged across an expanse of deep water; should such a wave
somehow be created, it will at once degenerate into a group or train of
waves, advancing at the group velocity. If one wants to propagate a wave
unchanged, one has to feed it constantly with energy, which will be
dissipated into a lengthening train of waves following on astern.
v All this has direct relevance to the behaviour of ships. A moving ship
is a disturbance which generates waves. Observation of any vessel under
way in deep calm water will show that she is accompanied by a pattern of
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the ship. It follows from what has just been said about energy flux and
group velocity that the ship's unchanging wave pattern can only be
maintained by feeding energy into it. The rate of energy flux, energy per
unit time, has the dimensions of power or force times velocity. It can be
expressed as the ship's velocity through the water multiplied by a force.
This force is the wave-making resistance of the ship. It can be reduced by
making the ship thinner, so fining the angle of entry at the bow; hence the
fine lines of fast displacement vessels such as destroyers.
The bow system starts with a crest near the bow. The similar stern
system starts with a trough near the stern. As speed increases, so does the
wavelength of the two systems. Eventually the first following crest of the
bow system coincides with the initial trough of the stern system; the two
systems to some extent cancel one another out, so reducing the amplitude
of the combined transverse system following astern of the ship. This is a
favourable situation, making for reduced wavemaking resistance, and so it
is sought after by ship designers.
If we increase the speed further, we get to the situation where the first
trough of the bow systems coincides with the stern system trough. The two
systems reinforce one another, maximising the wave height in the
transverse system and so the wave drag (Fig. 4). This is the "main hump"
which naval architects usually tiy to avoid by judicious choice of hull
length and shape.
18
ship's hull at her designed operating speed. One should note that the
optimum shape is a function of speed; the shape which will minimise
resistance, and hence fuel consumption, at one speed will not in general
be the most economical one at another speed. Tankers designed for 16
knots are sometimes operated at 8 knots to save fuel; but even more fuel
could be saved by using a hull designed from the outset to carry the same
cargo at 8 knots.
19
Waves in Shallow Water
Consider a wave train initially travelling in deep water. The train now
enters shoaling water. The first effect is a reduction in the crest celerity.
Since the frequency - ie, the number of crests arriving at a fixed point in
unit time - remains unchanged, It follows that the waves must become
shorter.
20
be dangerous to small craft. Reflected wave patterns have been Implicated
in fishing vessel losses off the Norwegian coasts, where wave reflections
from cliffs are common.
CONCENTRATION OF
WAVE ENERGY
WAVE REFRACTION
OVER SHOALS
BEACH
21
like plastic bottles at the top of the beach. By contrast, there is no bodily
transfer of water forwards in deep water waves, where individual water
particles simply move in circular orbits around unchanging mean centres.
Deep water waves are roughly symmetrical, with slopes of leading and
trailing faces seldom exceeding a steepness of 1 in 7. A wave travelling into
shallow water, however, loses its symmetry; the leading slope becomes
progressively steeper, eventually reaching and passing the vertical, and the
crest finally curls over forwards and breaks. The steep-fronted wave can be
particularly dangerous to small vessels, and there is little doubt that some
fishing vessels have been capsized by the impact of a vertical-fronted wave
striking flat upon the side of the superstructure.
22
In 1000 metres of water a wave of translation would travel at 193
knots. Such waves do actually occur, albeit infrequently. They are not
generated by the wind, but by earth tremors of volcanic origin. In the open
ocean they may only be a few centimetres high and they sweep past
unperceived by the mariner; but on approaching the coast they become
tall and steep, and can crash on the shore causing death and destruction.
The translation characteristic of the wave carries thousands of tons of
water beyond the normal high-tide mark; ships have been lifted and
deposited 200 metres inshore. Such waves are sometimes referred to as
tidal waves, misleadingly so as they have no connection with the tides. In
the*. Pacific basin they are known as Tsunamis. Earthquakes in South
America have been known to generate Tsunamis able to wreak damage on
the shores of Japan 10,000 miles away
The small craft sailor lives at close quarters with the waves of the ocean
and h%s every reason to respect them, especially the steep-fronted variety.
A wave which is no more than a minor irritant to a big-ship mariner may
be a major hazard to a yachtsman.
The interesting situation arises when the mean ship speed through
the water is close to the wave crest celerity. This will mean that the ship
"takes up station" upon a wave crest for some considerable period of time.
If the initial ship speed through the water is marginally less than that of
23
the wave, then as the crest passes the forward orbital motion of the water
particles in the crest will increase the ship's speed over the ground,
possibly up to the wave celerity, and the vessel will then be swept forward
by the crest, effectively becoming locked on to the wave.
The free gift of a little extra speed looks like a bonus, and so it might
be in the open ocean, but in coastal waters it may not be so welcome. As
the waters shoal the waves slow down and shorten, but at the same time
they get higher and steeper. This means that a craft which was initially
moving more slowly than the crests may find as the water shoals that the
waves cease to pass by from astern and begin to take station on her, with
danger of pooping or flooding from a wave breaking over the stern. A small
craft may at this stage become locked on to the wave and get carried
shorewards faster than she would wish, in the ultimate being pushed up
on to the beach by a steep wave in the manner of a surf rider.
The other main hazard, and one more familiar to small craft sailors, is
broaching. A craft is said to broach when she is brought broadside-on to
the waves in spite of all efforts by the helmsman to prevent this
happening. The broadside situation is one to be avoided, particularly in
steep-fronted waves, because of the consequent heavy rolling and danger
of capsize. (Fig. 6)
WAVE CELERITY
i 8 L 10 \
Consider first the nature of the resistance force. This is the force
exerted by a fluid upon a body moving through the fluid, acting in a
direction opposing the motion. To maintain the motion we shall need to
25
apply a propulsive force to the body which is equal and opposite to the
resistance force.
(Note that other forces may arise which are at right angles to the line
of advance of the body. These are known as lift forces. They are small in
the case of a conventional displacement vessel moving in a straight line at
a moderate speed and are usually neglected, but in high speed craft they
become large enough to lift the craft partially out of the water - the craft is
said to plane. We shall return to lift forces later; for the moment we are
concerned only with the resistance force acting in the line of motion).
Fluid forces enter the body in two distinct ways; by tangential drag
acting on the surface in a direction parallel to the surface, and by normal
pressures acting at right angles to the surface.
The tangential drag is in the nature of friction, and arises from the
viscosity of the fluid, as discussed in an earlier chapter. It depends upon
the area of the body surface exposed to the fluid - the "wetted surface" -
and the square of the velocity and a frictional coefficient/ The coefficient in
turn depends upon the viscosity and density of the fluid, the length of the
surface and its roughness. The effect of roughness is marked; the
coefficient has a minimum value for a perfectly smooth polished surface,
an ideal much sought after by racing yachtsmen.
Fluid forces arising from the distribution of normal pressures over the
hull caused by the motion are of several kinds. In a surface ship (as
distinct from a submerged submarine) the component of overwhelming
importance is the wave-making resistance. We have already seen that the
maintenance of a constant pattern of advancing wave crests, such as that
accompanying a ship, demands an expenditure of energy in the form of a
force moving in the direction of wave advance. This force, which needs to
be exerted by the ship's propeller or sails, is equal and opposite to the
wave-making resistance. Its magnitude depends veiy much on the hull
26
shape and increases sharply with speed. While the skin friction force on a
given hull goes up roughly as the square of the speed, the wave-making
resistance behaves in a more complicated manner.
It will be seen that the two major components of resistance vary with
speed in very different ways. At slow speeds there is little wave-making
and friction predominates; in a slow cargo ship it may represent 80% or
even 00% of the whole. At such speeds it pays the designer to minimise
the welted area. The ship's displacement or under-water volume is more or
less fixed by the specified cargo-carrying capacity; the designer therefore
seeks the form of least surface area for a given volume. The ultimate in
this direction, the sphere, is clearly not practical, but the designer will
approach it as closely as he can and will favour the short fat ship. In the
early days of sailing cargo ships length-to-beam ratios of 3 or so were
common, with near-circular sections.
27
MODEL SHIP
MEASURED
RESISTANCE
OR MODEL
In fast surface ships we need to reduce the angle of entry at the bow
to minimise wave-making, while less change is required at the stern. The
centre of buoyancy thus moves aft, and will be found well abaft amidships
28
1 "-JLiSiJiLli - * i
Resistance Prediction
The prediction of residuary resistance in the design stage is a matter of
some complexity. Unlike skin friction, it cannot be derived from a simple
formula, and it is sensitive to hull shape. Up to the middle of the 19th
century various attempts had been made to predict resistance by
experiments with ship models, without much success. The break-through
came when W. Froude established the distinction between skin friction
and, residuary resistance. His resistance prediction routine, followed in
principle to the present day, was to tow a scale model of the ship in a tank
of water and to measure the total resistance. He then calculated the skin
friction force, using coefficients derived from experiments with flat planks
towed edge-on. The calculated skin friction force was then deducted from
the tl>tal model resistance; the remainder was the model residuary
resistance. This he scaled up to ship scale in the ratio of the displacement
weights of model and ship, giving ship residuary resistance. He finally
calculated the ship skin friction; this added to the residuary gave the ship
total resistance. The accuracy of the method was proved by actually towing
a full-sized ship at sea using a dynamometer in the tow-rope. The method
has been amply confirmed by experience over more than a century.
We know that the celerity of the transverse wave crests is equal to the
speed of the ship, and that the wave celerity varies as the square root of
the wave length. The relation between model length and wave length in the
laboratory tank is to be the same as that between ship length and wave
length at sea. This is achieved if the model speed is scaled down in a ratio
equal to the square root of the linear scale. Thus, if we have a 1/64 scale
model of a 24 knot ship we must tow it at 24 knots divided by the square
root of 84 = 24/8 ~ 3 knots. This is called the corresponding speed/ When
a model is towed at corresponding speed, the ratio residuary
resistance/displacement weight is equal to the similar ratio in the ship.
Note that the ratio involves displacement weights, not volumes; allowance
must be made for water densities if, as is usually the case, the ship
operates in salt water while the model is tested in fresh.
29
The model procedure is quite expensive in that it involves substantial
capital facilities - long towing tanks, elaborate dynamometry and recording
instrumentation, model-making workshops and so on. Many attempts
have been made to cut out the model work by predicting wave-making
resistance through mathematical hydrodynamics, and computer programs
are becoming available for this. In addition much archival material is
available from tank models which have been tested in the past,
representing both actual ships and shapes of "methodical series" in which
various shape parameters have been varied in a systematic manner. For a
commercial ship of conventional design an acceptably accurate resistance
prediction is nowadays usually possible using available archive material
and programs, without commissioning new model work. Model work still
comes into its own, however, for novel types of ship, and for conventional
ships under unusual conditions - eg, in very shallow water, or with heavy
trim due to damage.
Few cargo ships operate "over the hump". Among the smaller craft,
however, speeds beyond the hump are increasingly common. Once the
hump is passed hydrodynamic lift forces become increasingly important.
As they grow the craft rises out of the sea so that the volume of water
displaced by the hull becomes significantly less than that displaced when
the craft is floating at rest. This is the planing regime. At very high speeds
the craft seems merely to skim the surface, only a small patch of the hull
bottom remaining in contact with the water. The reduction in wetted area
offers a beneficial decrease in friction.
30
At very high speeds hydrodynamic lift forces become insignificant.
31
It is sometimes said that the very fast craft, hydrofoils in particular,
do not generate significant waves. This is quite wrong. Any craft, whether
supported by a displacement hull, a skimming bottom, an air cushion or a
foil, exerts a downwards force equal to its own weight upon the water
beneath it. Once under way this force constitutes a travelling disturbance,
and it will generate a travelling wave pattern moving across the sea at its
own velocity. At a high speed this wave may be very long eg, a craft (of any
sort) moving at 40 knots in deep water is accompanied by a wave pattern
with 271 metres between crests. Such a wave may not be easy to see
because it will be quite low in relation to its length, but it may still contain
significant energy, and its maintenance will accordingly impose significant
wave-making drag on the craft generating it.
This has practical importance. Consider a fast craft travelling at, say,
20 knots in deep water, accompanied by the usual wave pattern. The craft
now enters shoaling water. As the wave pattern is modified by the shallows
the resistance will initially increase, and the craft will have to increase
power to maintain constant speed. When the depth falls to below 10
metres, however, the transverse part of the wave pattern can no logger
keep up and simply disappears, leaving only a modified divergent wave
pattern. The wave-making resistance is sharply cut, and the craft actually
travels faster for a given engine power than she would do in deep water.
33
A consequence of the length-dependence of wave celerity Is the so-
called dispersion effect, whereby long waves travel faster than short ones.
This means that the long waves generated by a remote storm disturbance
reach an observer before the short waves; a long smooth swell may be the
mariner's first warning of trouble afar off.
Since the frequency of the waves, ie the number of crests passing over
a fixed point on the sea bed per minute, must be the same outside and
inside the current area, it follows that the waves inside the current area
must be shorter. Because of the wave-length dependence discussed
earlier, it further follows that the wave celerity through the water, and
hence the group velocity and energy transport velocity relative to the
water, are all reduced.
Hie advance of the energy over the seabed is thus slowed down by two
separate and distinct actions; the dispersion effect slows down the flow
through the water, and the current itself slows down the movement over
the sea-bed. The effects are additive. The practical importance of this lies
in the fact that the slowing down of the energy flux means that the amount
of mechanical wave energy held in a given plan area of sea is increased,
and so the waves in the current-affected area get higher and steeper.
It can be shown from the theory that when the local current velocity
reaches the critical value of one-quarter of the open-ocean celerity of the
wave crests, the wave energy advance velocity over the ground is reduced
34
i
* J^' s i-I0 : f-
to zero. This results in the extraordinary situation where all the wave
energy arriving in the wave system is brought to a complete stop. Although
the waves continue to advance into the current area, their great energy
becomes trapped there, leading to a patch of violently confused steep seas.
Down-weather there is an area of calm water which the wave energy
cannot reach. (These effects form the basis of pneumatic breakwater
schemes, which use surface water currents induced by streams of air
bubbles to break up advancing wave fronts).
This cargo liner was lucky to survive spectacular damage to her fore end when
she "fell into a hole in the water" and shipped a huge breaking wave off the
coast of South Africa in the region of the Agulhas current.
35
There are not many places in the world where currents as fast as this
can meet long ocean swells head-on, but an area in the Indian Ocean off
the coast of South Africa is one of them. Here the Agulhas Current is
reputed to flow southwards at speeds of up to S1^ knots on occasion,
sometimes meeting long swells running northwards from remote Antarctic
storms. A number of ships have been sunk and damaged by heavy seas in
this area, and in the '70s a large cargo liner was lucky to survive
spectacular damage to her fore end when she "fell into a hole in the water"
and shipped a huge breaking wave when steaming southwards along the
line of the current. So the energy-blocking effect can indeed endanger
ocean-going ships.
There is a risk that the mariner can bring this hazard upon himself
unwittingly. If he meets a current flowing strongly in the direction in which
he wants to go, the mariner will naturally be tempted to route his ship
through the middle of it so as to gain a free boost in speed over the ground
and hence to save on his fuel bill. This is a reasonable tactic - provided
there are no long swells coming from ahead. If there are, the mariner may
well be taking his ship into dangerous waters. If he is in any doubt, and
has the sea-room, he would be better advised to keep clear of the current.
If we consider the smaller vessels, there are of course many more sea
areas where current effects can lead to danger. In coastal waters tidal
currents ana "races" can commonly reach several knots, leading to high
steep seas where the current flows against the waves - the "wind against
tide" situation. The small-craft mariner should be as wary of tidal currents
as of shoal water. Current and shoals together make a particularly potent
combination.
36
CHAPTER THREE
PROXIMITY
Bernoulli
We have already seen that the speed of a ship can be affected by the depth
of the water under the keel. Speed is not the only feature to be affected by
the proximity of the bottom; draught, trim and steering behaviour all
depart from the normal when the vessel is under way in close proximity to
the seabed, to horizontal boundaries such as dock walls or channel banks,
or tt> other vessels. These aberrations are referred to collectively as
proximity effects. They are of more than academic importance, as they can
- and do - cause collisions and groundings.
Squat ^
37
on the plating now differs somewhat from that existing with the ship at
rest, The total upward force on the hull changes; at moderate speeds there
is usually a small net decrease, so that the hull sinks slightly in the water
until the increase in buoyancy restores equilibrium. At very high speeds,
as in racing small craft, the hull may rise. In general the change in mean
draught is accompanied by a change in trim.
The reason for the increase in shallow water can be visualised; as the
hull approaches the seabed, the gap through which the water must pass
narrows, the velocity goes up, the pressure on the bottom plating goes
down and the squat increases. The effect is sometimes described as
bottom suction.
A vessel initially on an even keel will usually trim by the bow' when
moving in shallow water; that is, the bow will sink more than the Stern. A
vessel initially trimming heavily by the stern will trim even more by the
stern in shallow water. A vessel having some intermediate value of initial
stern trim will sink uniformly without change of trim; the value of the
initial^ trim to achieve parallel sinkage will depend upon the hull shape. In
practice most merchant ships in the usual loaded condition will squat and
trim by the bow when under way in shallow water.
38
Figures have been published from which parallel sinkage and trim for
various hull forms, speeds and depths can be estimated. Reliance should
only be placed on those formulae or graphs which take explicit account of
initial under-keel clearance. Whether he has such data to hand or not, the
wise mariner will remember that ships squat in shallow water, that the
amount of squat depends upon speed squared, and that if the echo
sounder shows only a small clearance under the keel it will be as well to
keep th speed down, especially over a rocky bottom.
Stability
If the bottom is smooth and soft this need not be fatal, in fact the ship
may continue moving ahead with the starboard bilge slithering along the
mud until deeper water is reached. A case is on record of a cargo vessel
operating in the shallow parts of the Gulf of Mexico which developed an
unexplained steady heel. The heel vanished when the ship slowed down,
returned again with increasing speed and finally disappeared when she
reached deeper water.
In shoal water the mariner should remember that all Bernoulli effects
vanish as velocity tends to zero ^ ^An unexpected heel or soggy slow roll
motion should be taken as a warning to reduce speed.
Bank Effects
Bernoulli forces arising from the ship's motion ahead through the water do
not only act vertically. They can be significant, sometimes dangerous and
sometimes helpful, in the horizontal plane too, notably in the group of
phenomena known as bank effects.
39
falls below that on the port and the ship experiences a net force urging her
to starboard - towards the bank. On the face of it this looks a dangerous
situation, and so it can be. But it is not a simple one.
Consider now what happens when there is a gap in the right bank - a
dock entrance, say, or a river confluence. A ship steaming parallel with the
bank suddenly finds that the Bernoulli moment to port disappears. The
ship at once begins to swing to starboard. If the mariner is not prompt
with his helm, his vessel will come so far to starboard that the bow will
strike the right bank where it reappears after the gap. (Fig. 9)
40
TURNING
Bank effects are present even when the banks are submerged and so
not visible. Hie banks may perhaps form the boundaries of a dredged
channel in the middle of a wide expanse of shallow water. A residue of
bank effect still persists when the bank is so deeply submerged that the
ship could steam safely over it without touching. The bank need not be
continuous. A potentially dangerous situation can arise when a ship
approaches a patch of shallows obliquely. Even though the shoal may be
below keel depth, a cushion effect can arise which is big enough to swing
the ship's head through an angle demanding correction by helm action.
41
Ship-Ship Interaction
The solid boundary causing Bernoulli effects need not be a dock wall or
bank; it can be another ship. Certainly, two ships in proximity suffer
suction effects which act to draw the two hulls closer together. But, as
with bank effects, the bodily force is accompanied by a turning moment.
This moment varies in a complicated way which depends on the relative
positions of the two ships. The moment does not always act in the 'safe'
direction as in a canal.
The potentially dangerous situations are those that can arise when
one ship overtakes another on a parallel course, or takes up station in line
abreast. Here the forces can last for many minutes and have significant
effects. If the vessels get too close together the interaction forces can
become too large to be countered by the rudder, and the hulls will be
drawn into contact.
42
A tug captain experiencing this form of interaction should not try to
outpace or turn away from the larger ship, but should reduce propeller
revolutions so as to drop back to the quieter waters abreast the middle of
the ship. Once there he can use his helm to put some distance between
the two hulls. The larger ship should in any case reduce speed when a tug
is making fast or operating near the ship's bow.
As; with squat and bank effects, the forces and moments acting
between ships in proximity have been well studied by the
hydrodynamicists and there is information in the literature from which
they can be predicted. But for practical purposes, the best working rule
when overtaking is to leave the widest possible clearance between hulls,
and to be ready to use helm to correct sudden unexpected sheers,
43
amidships but a long way off, and then to close the gap slowly with
minimal change of heading until the required spacing is reached. The
main requirement, both in taking up and leaving station, is to avoid the
partially-overlapping situation, bows of one ship near stern of the other,
when steering moments are at their worst.
When a ship's rudder is put over, two things happen; she starts to
move on a curved course, and her speed drops. After a while at constant
helm angle the speed reaches a steady value and the ship settles down on
to a circular course of constant diameter, referred to as the tactical
diameter. The tactical diameter for conventional cargo ships commonly has
a magnitude of about three ship lengths - in deep water.
The combined effect of the larger diameter combined with the higher
speed under helm in shallow water means that the time rate of change of
the heading angle is not very different from that in deep water. This has its
dangers, because the mariner pri fe or hear the gyro
compass moving round at its usual rate for a given helm angle, without
realising that his ship is using much more sea room for her turn than she
would in deep water. (Fig. 11) i
44
i
8 1 3 . -
INITIAL SPEED=V
Virtual Mass
45
see that it has some practical relevance. It is introduced in the present
chapter because it is sensitive to proximity effects.
Added mass is much greater for sideways motion than for motion
ahead, and this again is also increased by shoal water. Admittedly, ships
seldom move sideways; but it does happen during berthing, when the, ship
must be decelerated to a stop before the jetty carries away. The combined
effect of sideways motion and shallow water can be such as to increase the
virtual mass, not by just a few percent but to many times the mass of the
ship alone. This means a great deal to the ship designer who has to
dimension the side framing to take the berthing loads, and to the civil
engineer who has to build his jetty to take the same forces when they come
out of the shore side of the fenders. The mariner bringing a loaded tanker
alongside at a dredged oil berth to the sound of scrunching fenders may
like to remember that the momentum of perhaps a million tonnes of water
needs to be checked, as well as that of ship and cargo.
46
CHAPTER FOUR
Water flowing past a solid body exerts a force upon it. This force can be
resolved into two components, known as lift and drag. Drag acts in the
direction of the water flow, and lift at right angles to this direction.
Identical forces operate if the water Is at rest and the body moves through
it with the same relative velocity.
If the body Is symmetrical about the axis of flow - as, for instance, in
the qase of a running torpedo - then lift forces are absent and the body
suffers only a drag force.
7
111 the case of a surface ship, we have a body which - provided helm is
amidships - is symmetrical about a vertical plane, but is non-symmetrical
about lany horizontal plane. A lift force, which may act upwards or
downwards, will therefore in general act in the vertical direction. In
conventional displacement ships this causes the draught under way to
differ from that at rest, but the effect is small and can generally be
neglected in deep water. In very fast vessels, however, the lift force can
raise and trim the hull by a significant amount, and we ultimately reach
the racing motor boat which virtually skims the surface, supported largely
by the lift force acting on a small patch of bottom. In this case the
hydrostatic buoyancy force due to the submerged hull is small in
comparison with the lift.
In both slow and fast vessels, of course, drag forces (as distinct from
lift) will arise; these will be of the frictional and other types already
discussed in an earlier chapter. In the present discussion we shall
concentrate upon lift, as distinct from drag.
Return now to the fully submerged body. Let this initially be a blade
with a section in the form of a long thin oval. If the oval is symmetrical
about its longer axis and the water flow is along the direction of this axis,
then the flow pattern will be symmetrical about the axis and no lift forces
will arise.
47
(a) SYMMETRY DRAG ONLY
J i LIFT
48
We now return to the symmetrical oval blade, and introduce
asymmetry by tilting it through a small angle, such as 5 degrees, relative
to the flow. The flow pattern again becomes asymmetrical, with higher
velocities over the back of the blade (ie, the surface facing away from the
oncoming flow). It is not so easy in this case to form a simple physical
picture to explain why the velocities over the back should be higher; for
our present purpose it must suffice to state that there is ample
experimental evidence for this being so. The key lies in the need for the
flow to' separate smoothly from the blade at its sharp trailing edge, and not
at some point forward of this; while the oncoming flow can meet and split
into two at a "stagnation point" which can be somewhat away from the
precise leading edge, on the side facing the oncoming flow. Hie net result
is that the travel over the back is longer, leading to higher velocities and
suction on the back as before. There is again a force on the blade, which
canrbe resolved into a lift and a drag.
As soon as the bubbles are clear of the low pressure area on the back
of the foil they are exposed to the full pressure of the surrounding
seawater and they collapse, each with an audible and potentially damaging
49
bang. If the collapse takes place in contact with a solid surface, the
repeated pressure pulses from bubble collapse can cause pitting and
erosion of the surface.
50
bubble collapse can seriously damage propeller blades, shaft bracket
arms, rudder leading edges, etc. In an extreme case cavitation can erode
holes right through propeller blades.
Hydrofoils
Air is particularly liable to work its way down from the sea surface
along the trailing edges of the legs which attach the foil surfaces to the
hull. To stop this happening the legs are sometimes fitted with fences,
local horizontal fins which act to detach any air bubbles which find their
way down from the surface, and throw them downstream before they reach
the main lifting foil.
Fins,:.
Another lifting surface found in some displacement vessels is the stabiliser
fin. The operation of fins is discussed in a later chapter; suffice it here to
say that the fin in this application needs to be able to exert force equally in
either direction, up or down. It is therefore made with a symmetrical
section, and so has not quite such a good lift/drag ratio as that attainable
in a quasi-aerofoil section.
Like any other lifting surface in water, a stabiliser fin can suffer from
cavitation and ventilation. Cavitation is avoided by using an adequate area
51
of surface and a suitable section shape. Ventilation is seldom a problem in
conventional displacement ships where the fins are well immersed at turn
of bilge; in any case the intermittent operation of the fins as the ship rolls
gives little time for ventilation bubbles to build up.
Rudders
Practically every ship has a rudder, a lifting surface vital to the operation
of the vessel. Like the fin, the rudder has to have a symmetrical section
because it must operate equally to port and starboard. A rudder can in
theory cavitate, though this seldom causes trouble because a rudder
spends only a very short period of its life generating the full lift of which it
is capable.
52
! . BlSu-, . Z
LIFT
(a) CONVENTIONAL
RUDDER AT SMALL
^ H E L M ANGLE
Propellers
53
Propellers are occasionally called upon to exert thrust astern. When
so working the lifting surface is operating "upside down", with pressure on
the more convex surface and suction on the flatter. Under these conditions
the lift/drag ratio is poorer than when thrusting ahead, and there will be
less thrust for a given power. Where a screw propeller is called upon to
thrust equally in either direction, as with a tunnel-mounted propeller in a
lateral thrust unit, a symmetrical blade section would be used to equalise
performance to port and starboard.
54
f , ^.v^r-
Propeller blades are usually narrow at the base where they are
attached to the boss, but they are thick here to maintain strength. The
width of chord, measured from leading edge to trailing edge at constant
distance from axis, is a maximum around mid radius falling to zero at tip,
so thaHthe blade outline seen from astern is elliptical. These ellipses can
be quite narrow in low-powered ships, but if power is increased while
propeller diameter is limited by draught, cavitation considerations will
make it necessary to increase the blade areas so that the ellipses get
fattef. At very high powers the blades may resemble distorted discs, with
blade overlapping blade.
55
The elliptical outline is often distorted by giving the blade a certain
amount of "sweep-back" or "skew"; that is, the mid-points of the chords
are placed not on a single radial line, but are displaced predominantly aft
along the helix by increasing amounts from root to tip. This gives a blade
of bent-back appearance, an arrangement adopted with the aim of
reducing vibration. The vibration can arise from non-uniformity in the
ship's frictional wake behind the ship's stern when under way, and in
particular from the intense wake "shadow" behind the stern-post of a
single-screw ship. Here the water is largely moving along with the ship, as
compared with the water further out which is sweeping past at near ship-
speed. The effect of the variation in the approach velocity is to expose the
propeller blade to a transient increase in inflow angle as the blade swings
through the shadow. This results in a sudden jllCrC3.S6 3X1 both lift and
drag forces on the blade, The force pulses are transmitted to the hull
through the shaft and cause vibration, if the blade is skewed or swept
back, the different parts of the blade pass the stern post at different
instants so that the force pulses are spread out in time and the intensity of
vibration is reduced. Skewed propellers are more expensive to produce,
and extreme skew may produce strength problems, but a moderate degree
of skew is common practice in single-screw merchant ships. Heavily
skewed propellers are sometimes used in submarines. (Fig. 14)
ELLIPTICAL RAKED
UNLOADED
TIP
56
Another form of distortion sometimes seen in merchant ship
propellers is rake. In a raked propeller the mean axis of each blade is not
square to the shaft axis. Sternwards rake is used to increase the distance
between the blade tips and the stern post, so lessening wake-shadow
effects. Sternwards rake increases the bending moments in the blade roots
as the moments due to hydrodynamic forces on the blades are augmented
by moments due to centrifugal forces. A propeller with sternwards rake
will thus need thicker blade roots than an equivalent unraked one in the
same material.
Consider now what happens around the tip of any surface generating lift.
We have already seen that there is positive pressure on the face and
negative pressure on the back. This causes fluid on the face near the tip to
flow outwards towards the tip, and fluid on the back to flow inwards from
the tips. These motions are imposed on the normal chordwise How of the
fluid, ajid result in a rotary motion in the fluid flowing downstream from
the tip! This forms the tip-vortex, a phenomenon of some practical
importance.
57
Tip-vortex cavitation is common in heavily loaded propellers. The
cavity sometimes extends in the form of a helix for a considerable distance
downstream from each propeller blade tip. In clear water the vortex cavity
may be visible to an observer leaning over the stern guard-rails, and
schnorkel-equipped swimmers can see (and hear) the tip cavitation in
passing motor boats. (Fig. 15)
CP Propellers
59
increases in density as one goes down, but the increase is only about
0-004% over 10 metres increase in depth. The density effect could thus
only account for a force of a few newtons at most in the largest ship, which
is far too small to account for the observed ship behaviour.
The true explanation lies rather in the asymmetry of the water flow
through the propeller disc, caused by the proximity of the ship's hull. The
astern case is easier to visualise. With a right-handed propeller turning
astern, the water stream at the top of the disc encounters the stern plating
with a strong forward and some portward velocity, exerting a portward
force on the hull. There is a corresponding starboardward velocity at the
bottom, but the lines here are finer and some of the flow anyway passes
from one side to the other under the keel. The portwards force
preponderates, giving the well-known kick to port.
The ahead case is more complex, and several different effects may
operate together. In a full-bodied ship, the presence of the hull - and of the
, free surface - makes the inflow into the disc very non-uniform. In first
turning from rest, the flow at the top may be so obstructed by hull and
free surface as to stall, and perhaps ventilate, the flow over the blades, so
reducing the athwartships force. The lower blades, working unstalled,
deliver the larger sideways force, hence the kick to starboard.
It will be seen that the paddle-wheel effect when under way ahead is
the resultant of a wide range of factors, mainly connected with the design
of stern body and rudder, and it can be expected to vary from ship to ship,
and probably with draught in a given ship. It is also affected to some
degree by under-keel clearance. But in any case, once the ship is under
60
way ahead the rudder will be working and a very small constant helm
angle will be enough to cancel out any lateral force arising from paddle-
wheel effects. The helmsman may not be conscious at all of applying this
correction as he holds the ship on course.
ei
5
I
%
%
rT\
61
CHAPTER FIVE
TURNING CORNERS
We know that we can steer a ship with a rudder, and that the rudder
is usually at the stern. Why should it be there, and not somewhere else,
such as at the bow? The answer is by no means obvious. The steering of a
ship is, in fact, a process of some subtlety, and to examine this process we
need first to go back to some fundamental mechanics.
If our body is heading, say, due North and we wish to change course
through 90 degrees to starboard so as to head due East, we can bring it to
rest by applying a Southwards braking force for the necessary time, and
we can then send the body off on its new course by applying an
accelerating force in the Easterly direction. This would, however, be
wasteful in energy; a better and more practical procedure would be to
arrange for the body to follow a curved path linking the old course and the
new, say an arc of a circle, without slowing down.
I
While on the circular path, although the speed along the path is
constant, it can be shown from the geometry of the situation that the body
will have an acceleration directed towards the centre of the circle equal to
the speed squared divided by the radius of the circle. To achieve this,
Newton tells us that we must apply a force equal to this acceleration times
the body's mass. This force is "centripetal", that is, directed towards the
centre of curvature of the path. This direction is at right angles to; the
direction of advance at any instant.
62
A couple, acting clockwise as seen from above, to rotate the hull
in azimuth against the resistance of the water, and
We can show from basic mechanics that the couple and the force
through the CG can be replaced by a single force to starboard acting
through a point forward of the CG. (Fig. 16)
G
!
63
turn would need a cable tension of the order of a thousand tonnes force,
so we clearly need to look for something more practical.
64
turning action will be zero. We must push somewhere else. To generate a
yaw moment to starboard, we can exert a force either to starboard forward
of the main lift, or to port abaft it, the moment being equal to the auxiliary
force times its fore-and-aft separation from the main lift force. Since the
main force acts well forward of amidships, it follows that we get much
more moment for a given auxiliary force by putting our force-generating
device at the stern rather than at the bow. Hence the conventional rudder.
There are, of course, other and more practical reasons for fitting the
rudder aft. The slipstream of the propeller enables the rudder to give more
force per unit area than would be available from a bow rudder; there is
more room in the stem to house the steering gear; and a bow rudder is
more vulnerable to damage, But it should be remembered that the main
reason for putting the rudder at the stem is hydrodynamic in nature.
Directional Stability
We have seen that the steering behaviour of a ship depends upon the
relation between the two centres. In most ships the centre of lift caused by
a small yaw is somewhat abaft the centre of action of the athwarts hips
force required to maintain a curved course. This means that, if the rudder
is held amidships, any transient yaw - induced, perhaps, by wind or waves
- will be damped out and the ship will continue on a straight course. Such
a ship is said to be directionally stable. This is in general a desirable
quality, but one can have too much of it; the greater the directional
stability, the greater the rudder force needed to follow a path of given
65
to follow it with the helm still amidships. Such a ship has neutral
directional stability.
If the centre of lift is forward of the other centre, the ship with helm
amidships will not continue on a straight course. She will swing on a
curved path, either to port or to starboard, and can only be held on to an
approximately straight course by repeated applications of correcting helm.
Such a ship is directionally unstable. This feature occurs mainly in ships
with very full lines in the after body, such as some tankers with high block
coefficients. Steering a directionally unstable ship demands constant
activity from the helmsman, or auto-pilot, even in calm water. Quite apart
from the load on the steering gear and the helmsman, instability is
undesirable because the continual helm activity, and consequential
yawing motion about the mean heading, increases resistance and fuel
consumption.
We have spoken of the two centres as though they were points fixed in
the ship. This is only approximately true; the centre of lift in particular
depends to some extent on yaw angle, so that a ship can be directionally
unstable at small helm angles and stable at larger angles. Such a ship
responds normally to large helm angles, but still needs to be "ridden" by
the helmsman, using small helm angles, to maintain an approximately
straight course without too much wander.
The centres also move with changes of draught and trim; stern trim
makes for greater stability. The under-keel clearance affects ship
behaviour as well; the changes are complex, but the overall result is that
in shallow water a given rudder angle produces a smaller yaw angle than
in deep water. The effects are two-fold: the ship follows a less curved path,
and the loss of speed due to turning is less. With an under-keel clearance
of 0-4 times the draught, the diameter of the circle steered may beitwice
the diameter for the same helm angle in deep water. The consequences of
this have already been discussed in the chapter on proximity effects. \
Pivoting Point : : :: ,
Mariners sometimes maintain that there is a point somewhere in a ship's
length about which she pivots or turns in some way. There may be some
risk of confusion between this point and the two centres referred to in the
discussion above. The pivoting point is not directly related to these
centres.^.-'.'. t.,.
66
It follows from the geometry that an observer at the stern of a ship
turning to starboard will be moving through space in a direction angled to
port of the ship's middle line, and one at the bow in a direction to
starboard. At some point along the ship's length the observer will find
himself moving parallel with the ship's middle line. This is the mariner's
"pivoting point". {Fig. 18)
Since the yaw angle in a turn necessarily carries the bow in towards
the centre of the turn, it follows from the geometry that the pivoting point
must be forward of amidships. In fact in some cases, such as fast planing
craft, the pivoting point can be so far forward as to lie outside the vessel
completely. On the other hand, in slow ships in shallow water the
reduction in yaw angle carries the pivoting point back towards amidships.
This effect may have to be allowed for by mariners handling ships in
shallow and confined waters.
67
CHAPTER SIX
But in the design office, fairness relates to the shape of the ship as
designed rather than as actually built. The term is applied in particular to
the underwater shape, as set out in the lines plan. In this drawing the hull
shape is defined by a set of curves; the waterlines (sections of the hull
surface by a series of horizontal planes or waterplanes), bow-and-buttock
lines (sections by vertical planes parallel to the plane of symmetiy) and
displacement sections (sections by transverse vertical planes). Sometimes
diagonals are also shown (sections by oblique planes which intersect the
plane of symmetry in a horizontal line).
The naval architect requires all curves shown on the lines plan to be
fair. There is no precise and agreed mathematical definition for the^ term;
one of the classic works of reference described a fair curve simply as one
which is "pleasing to the eye" - the naval architect's eye, presumably For
many years ships' lines were based on little more than this purely
subjective criterion. Curves were drawn using bent wooden battenfe or
splines, held down on to the drawing board with lead weights. The fairest
curve was reckoned to be the one drawn with the stiffest batten, held down
with the smallest number of weights.
This method worked well enough when applied with eyeball and
pencil, and successful ships were designed for many generations in this
manner. However, programming a computer to generate lines curves 'calls
for criteria which are more precise and can be expressed in numerical or
analytical terms. Much mathematical ingenuity has gone into lines-
generating systems. The main aim has been to minimise the rate of change
of curvature along any given curve, while maintaining the displacement
and other hydrostatic particulars required by the ship design. Certainly,
modern computer fairing programs generate lines plans which are
68
pleasing, indeed beautiful, to the eye of the most critical naval architect.
The flow in the boundary layer can take one of two forms, laminar and
turbulent, In laminar flow the successive layers move smoothly over one
another like shuffled playing cards, the layer velocities increasing
smoothly (but not linearly) as we go from the solid surface towards the
outside of the boundary layer. In turbulent flow, however, the sliding
motion breaks up into a mass of small eddies, so that the velocity
measured at any fixed point in the boundary layer would show a rapid
fluctuation in magnitude and direction. However, the mean velocity at the
point will still be directed sternwards, and will increase as before with
distance from the surface of the plank. The eddying motion is confined
within the thickness of the boundary layer.
The boundary layer only comes into existence because the water is
viscous. If there were fluid with zero viscosity, it could flow past a solid
surface with no boundary layer; in the case of our plank the velocity would
be V right up to the surface of the plank. No such fluid exists and so the
situation cannot arise in practice. Nevertheless the flow of "ideal" inviscid
fluids is studied by hydrodynamicists because it can be modelled
mathematically with relative ease; viscous and turbulent flows are more
difficult to represent mathematically. And the theoretically-predicted
behaviour of ideal fluids can offer useful guidance to the behaviour of real
fluids - provided the effects of viscosity and the existence of boundary
layers can be allowed for.
Let us now replace our flat plank by a solid body, say an ellipsoid of
revolution or cigar-shape, deeply immersed in the fluid with its major axis
in the direction of flow. If the fluid is inviscid there will be no boundary
layer. As the flow approaches the bow the flow lines diverge and the
pressure rises, so that the pressure due to flow exerts a sternwards force
on the body. Abreast amidships the lines are crowded together and the
pressure falls; the port and starboard suctions however cancel one another
out. At the stem the lines again converge, matching the pattern at the
bow: the fluid here exerts a forward force on the body. It can be,shown
from the mathematics that the bow and stern forces are equal knd so
cancel out; this is true whether the body is symmetrical fore-andlpft or
not. The body thus exerts no drag force on the body. This is the so-called
Paradox of D'Alembert, and it seems to defy common sense. \
In real life, of course, the fluid is always viscous and the body will
suffer a frictional drag of the sort already discussed under Viscosity in
Chapter 1. But viscosity leads to another type of drag which is quite
distinct from skin friction. This arises because of the effect of the
boundary layer upon the stream lines.
70
lines are still spread outwards by the boundary layer travelling
downstream as the frictional wake. As a result the divergence of the lines
at the stern is less marked than at the bow, the slowing down is less and
the local rise in pressure - the "recovery pressure" - is less. The
consequential forwards force on the stern is less than the sternwards force
on the bow, and there is a net drag force on the body, confirming everyday
experience. It is important to note that this force, sometimes called form
drag, is entirely distinct from the skin friction drag. Friction drag enters
the hull through shear stresses acting tangentially to the hull plating, and
form drag through direct stresses (ie, pressures) acting at right angles to
the plating. Form drag is sometimes described as arising from a deficiency
in the stem recovery pressures. (Fig. 19)
71
that this is what does happen, provided that the stern lines of the body or
vessel do not converge too rapidly towards the stern. If, however, the lines
are brought in too sharply, the whole flow pattern can become disrupted;
the flow is said to separate. In this context the term separation has a
special meaning.
Separation of Flow-
Let us consider in more detail the flow pattern around the stern of our
submerged body. Abreast amidships we have seen that the water is
moving aft relative to the vessel at a speed slightly above V. In the after
body, however, the flow lines diverge as the body becomes thinner. The
water speed outside the boundary layer drops because of the spreading of
the flow lines. Inside the boundary layer this drop in speed is
superimposed on the slowing down already caused by the viscous friction.
The two effects acting together can bring the water close to the hull to a
complete stop, and even cause some of it to begin flowing back towards the
bow. When this happens the boundary layer begins to thicken abruptly.
The flow lines outside the layer no longer follow the converging stern lines
of the solid body; instead they break off and flow directly downstream
parallel with the main flow of water remote from the body. The space
between the innermost layers of smooth-flowing water and the body
surface is occupied by a grossly enlarged boundary layer, which now
contains large eddies. The agitation persists downstream of the body,
where it forms the turbulent wake.
72
Photo courtesy B.P.
We can see that a slow ship can have quite a bluff entry forward because wave
making is not a major concern. Some tankers have bulbous bows: these
function by reducing vortex formation around the forefoot.
73
Separation in a displacement ship is usually caused by too steep a
slope in the lines of the after body. A rule of thumb sometimes quoted is
that waterlines here should not have a slope greater than 20 relative to
the middle-line plane; slope in buttock and diagonal lines should also be
limited. This results in one of the classic ship-design conflicts; the ship
designer wants to place his engine-room as close to the stern as possible,
but if he puts it too close the beam required for the machinery pushes the
lines out so that the critical slope is exceeded, flow separates and the ship
fails to reach her designed speed.
In a hull form which has been steepened so that the flow is almost
but not quite separating, we may have flow conditions which are barely
stable, and where a minor disruption can cause the flow to separate. Here
it is particularly important for the plating to be smooth, with no
discontinuities in direction or curvature. So we have at last established
some connection between flow and fairness. Note that unfairness alone
does not cause separation, but it can trigger separation if other conditions
are favourable.
ACase Study \
\
\
We can illustrate the sometimes curious effects of separated flow by
describing the case of a certain small craft that had steering difficulties.
While the rudder was of conventional area and design, the boat's response
to helm was extremely sluggish, and the turning circle was large.
Investigation showed that the deck at the stern had been made elliptical in
plan for operational reasons. This elliptical form had been carried down
into the underwater hull, leading to waterlines which were unduly steep.
Model experiments showed that separation was occurring, and that the
point of separation was unstable, wandering forward and aft along the
ship's side. This was confirmed by observation at ship. Trials showed that
when the helm was put to starboard the yaw produced speeded5 up the
flow round the port quarter, suppressing the separation there; while the
slower flow round the starboard quarter aggravated the separation on that
side/ The streamline flow on the port quarter restored the recovery
pressures there; these, having a component to starboard, acted in
opposition to the rudder force. As a result, the vessel (in the Cox'n's words)
"steered like a pig".
-mkio-i e
In vessels which are fast in relation to their length, particularly small craft
where a large beam is dictated by stability and other considerations, a
completely separation-free conventional stern would result in an
unacpeptably long hull. In such cases the designer usually accepts that
some separation has to be lived with, and the problem resolves itself into
minimising its adverse effects. This means seeing that the separation
happens at a place chosen by the designer. His usual procedure is to cut
the stqpi off square and to leave the corners sharp - surely the grossest
kind oft unfairness. When the craft is under way, the flow separates quite
cleanly^where it is meant to, at the sharp corners. At low speeds the
transom drags along behind it the usual turbulent water, but as speed
increases the flow shoots aft from the bottom as well as the sides, leaving
the transom dry. The greater part of the turbulent wake disappears, but
this does not mean that the separation drag has gone too; the dry transom
has no water pressure on it at all so that recovery forces are virtually zero.
To work properly a transom must have sharp square edges all round.
On occasion transoms have been given radiused corners, for aesthetic or
other reasons. The result is that separation is no longer clean; water is
drawn round the corners to fall into a confused tumbling mass pulled
along behind the transom at all speeds. As well as being unsightly, this
kind of flow augments the hull drag because of the suction around the
curved corners. This is a case where the extreme of unfairness - a sharp
corner of zero radius - is to be preferred to a supposedly fair curved
profile.
Trailing Vortices
, Separation is not always confined to the after end. A curious form of
separated flow sometimes occurs in the fore-body of full-bodied ships.
Where the entry is blunt, the flow lines near the bow plunge sharply
downwards at an angle of slope which may reach 45 in the region of the
75
forefoot. If the hull form here is not carefully designed the flow may
separate obliquely on each side, attaching again near the forward shoulder
where the flow lines bunch and the flow speeds up. The effect of the
localised detachment is to throw off trailing vortices. These stream astern,
rather like an aircraft's wingtip vortices or the tip vortices from propeller
blades.
Why Fairness?
76
The bulbous bow in a fast ship operates by reducing wave formation. The bulb
enables the buoyancy forward to be carried low down, so minimising the
waterline angle of entry.
77
These unfairnesses are entirely acceptable because the flow in
ordinary ahead motion is along them and not across them, The designer is
careful to position the bilge keel on the hull so that it lies exactly along the
expected line of flow throughout its length. In a slow ship the flow
direction is nearly enough fore-and-aft at constant depth along the parallel
body amidships, so that the bilge keel can be placed in a diagonal plane.
In a fast vessel such as a destroyer it cannot be assumed that the flow lies
along the diagonal plane, and it may be necessary to carry out model
experiments to plot the actual line of flow before designing the bilge keel.
The flow past a ship's hull can sometimes take unexpected forms. At
one time it was customary to assume that "flow in the fore body is along
diagonals and in the after body along buttock lines", but this was a crude
approximation. Where direction is important - as in designing the tunnels
referred to above - some objective method of flow prediction is needed. The
classical method is to use a physical ship model in a tank; flow direction is
indicated by tufts of thread anchored at various points around the hull, or
by streams of dye emitted from small holes in the model. Lately computer
methods have become available, saving the cost of model and tank work.
\
Some designers have exploited the tolerance of flow to aligned
unfairnesses, and have produced hull designs with knuckles or corners
parallel with the flow. This enables the steelwork to be simplified > to a
series of flats, so avoiding the need for frame bending and plate rolling.
The result is a cheaper, if less beautiful, ship. Other designers have
accepted curvature, but have restricted it to cylindrical and conical forms
which are easy to roll; any plate with curvature in two directions, such as
a spherical or ellipsoidal surface, is difficult and expensive to form.
It will be clear from the earlier discussions that these simplified forms
can be fully acceptable hydrodynamically provided full account is taken of
the flow directions around the hull, so that flow is not called upon to pass
across sharp convex corners. The designer working in GRP or FRP, of
course, has no call to use simplified forms; his material enables him to use
as much two-directional curvature as he likes. However, all designers need
to watch carefully areas of diverging flow lines, where asking the water to
diverge too sharply may result in separating flow and all the troubles that
stem from it.
78
Some ships have been built with angular comers or knuckles in the hull
plating. This enables steelwork to be simplified and makes for economy in
construction, but the knuckles must be carefully aligned with the water flow
to minimise drag.
79
CHAPTER SEVEN
If now the ship is heeled, G and B will no longer in general lie on the
same vertical line, and the forces will form a couple. The offset distance
between the lines of action of weight and buoyancy is called the righting
lever GZ. The moment of the couple acting on the ship is equal to GZ times
the weight of ship W. GZ is taken to be positive if the moment acts to
return the ship to the upright, negative if it acts to increase the he^l. A
positive GZ thus implies stability.
80
by a shift of cargo, will capsize if the moment carries her beyond the angle
of maximum GZ. Note that this angle is smaller than the angle of
vanishing stability.
GZ curves
Ship's officers should ideally have access to the GZ curves for their
vessel, and they should be able to correct them for G being at a different
height from that assumed when the curves were plotted. Thus, if G rises
through a distance h, the decrease in GZ value at heel is h.sin .
From the geometry we can see that GZ = GM. for small values of .
It follows that the slope of the GZ curve at the origin is equal to GM. The
value of GM can thus easily be derived from the GZ curves by drawing a
tangent to the curve at zero heel; this line cuts the ordinate at 57-3- (one
radian) at a height equal to GM, as measured on the GZ scale. This
tangent is sometimes shown already drawn in on sets of GZ curves. ;
82
A wise designer will keep his eye constantly on the whole GZ curve,
not only for the intact ship but also for the ship in possible damaged
conditions.
The ship's designer knows where the vessel's centre of gravity G ought to
be, but it is advisable in practice (indeed, obligatory in UK passenger
shipsKto conduct measurements at ship from time to time to find out
where G actually is. The metacentric height provided us with a convenient
procedure for doing this, by means of the so-called inclining experiment or
test^
Mariners will appreciate that every ship has a natural period of roll.
This depends upon the GM; the higher the GM, the shorter the period.
Indeed, an excessive GM can cause a rolling motion that is so quick and
lively that the ship is rendered uncomfortable and even dangerous to
passengers and crew; passenger vessels usually have a relatively low GM.
83
Ships in Waves
Following Sea
Thus, a ship perched on a following wave can lose part of her effective
GM over a period of time. In these circumstances a moderate heeling
moment, as from the wind, can produce an unexpected and even alarming
angle of heel. This effect is particularly marked in forms with heavily flared
and overhanging sterns, where stability depends upon keeping the stern
wet. Ship's officers cannot do much about the hull form/ but they may be
able to avoid the wave-riding situation by adjusting course or speed. If the
waves pass the ship fairly quickly the periods of GM reduction still occur,
but are too short in duration to allow embarrassing heels to build up.
84
A related phenomenon is the so-called "parametric rolling". If a ship is
acted on by a constant heeling moment m (due perhaps to a beam wind or
asymmetric loading) she will heel to an angle given by in = W.GZ =
W.GM.8 if is small. Here W and m are both constant, so that GM. has
to be constant too. It follows that will vary if GM varies. But we have
already seen that the effective GM of a flared ship will vary as a wave
travels along the length. Thus, a ship in these circumstances will
experience a varying - that is, a rolling motion - even when the seas
encountered are coming from dead ahead or astern. The amplitude could
be troublesome near resonance, which occurs when the wave encounter
period is half the natural roll period of the ship. As above, the short-term
treatment is to avoid resonance by adjusting course or speed, and also to
avdid if possible carrying any list. (Fig. 21)
c
w
Free Surface
We have noted that BM, and hence GM, depend upon waterplane inertia.
Effective inertia can be lost from internal free surfaces of liquid, such as in
slack tanks. The effective loss of GM from a free surface is given by i/V,
where l is the moment of inertia of the free surface about its own centre of
area. One can think of the ship's waterplane inertia being reduced from I
to I - i. If i is large, the loss of GM could be serious.
One can see from this that it is quite easy to design a ship in which
the initial stability can be destroyed at a stroke. One does this by
arranging an internal compartment or cargo space which is so long and
85
wide that its moment of inertia i is comparable with that of the ship's
waterplane I. If we put this compartment low down, we can expect it to
flood following collision or other mishap. In that event BM shrinks
drastically from I/V to (I - i)/V, GM and GZ become negative and the ship
capsizes. Don't the regulations prevent this? At the time of writing, they do
not.
Stabilisers
As already mentioned, every ship has Its own natural period of roll; if
heeled and released in calm water, it will roll back and forth like a
pendulum. The motion is relatively lightly damped, so that the rolling
persists over a number of cycles. It is a characteristic of lightly damped
systems that the amplitude of oscillation will build up markedly if the
system is subjected to a cyclic disturbance with frequency close to the
natural frequency of the system. In ship terms, the roll will build up to
large angles If beam seas are encountered at the right frequency; this is
the condition of roll resonance.
Sizes, shapes and materials being what they are, most conventional
ships finish up with natural periods somewhere in the range 8 to 16
seconds. It so happens, as a result of one of nature's pleasantries, that
most of the bigger waves in the world's oceans also have periods in the
range 8 to 16 seconds. The result is that resonance in roll is a common
phenomenon at sea.
86
The first roll damper exploited the free surface effect. Every tank in a
ship has a natural period, the time taken for the water or other liquid
content to slosh from port to starboard and back again. One can design a
tank to have a natural period of slosh equal to the ship's natural period of
roll. Then, when the ship rolls resonantly in a beam sea, the fluid in the
tank will rush back and forth with great vigour, dissipating its energies by
thumping against the end bulkheads and by swirling round internal
obstructions, which may be inserted for the purpose. The energy so spent
in the tank is abstracted from the ship's rolling motion, which is thereby
reduced in amplitude. Such a tank constitutes a simple roll damper, well
known and exploited in ships since Victorian days. This device still works
when the ship is not under way, a useful virtue for ships which require to
lie stopped or move slowly at sea, eg cable ships, light ships
The tuned tank was the first of the so-called stabilisers. Since its
Invention great energy and ingenuity have gone into devising other
systems, involving pumps, air blowers, rolling weights, gyroscopes,
activated fins and so on. With the right control gear one can even use the
rudder to reduce roll, by exploiting the cross-coupling between roll and
yaw.
Inventors proliferate and patent lawyers profit, but ships still roll. Any
new inventor entering the field should bear in mind that a roll-damping
device should generate a moment in quadrature with the roll angle, not in
phase with it; that is to say, the moment should oppose the roll velocity,
not the roll angle. Some very elaborate control systems have been
produced, with integral and differential as well as angle terms in the
control signal, but the basic requirement remains simple - to suck energy
out of the rolling moment, and that means opposing the roll velocity.
Complications introduced into the control signal usually have the aim of
countering the effects of time-delays in the operation of, eg, fin
mechanisms.
The simplest, and probably the most cost-effective, roll damper of the
lot is probably the h ^ bilge keel; no maintenance, power
consumption, noise, inboard volume or patent fees.
87
CHAPTER EIGHT
VIBRATION
Sources of Vibration
The mariner is often uncomfortably aware of the fact that ships vibrate.
Sometimes the vibration is clearly attributable to an inboard mechanical
source, such as a diesel engine; we shall not discuss vibrations of inboard
origin here. Other kinds of vibration, however, arise from various kinds of
interaction between the ship and the water, and so do concern us. Most of
these are associated in one way or another with the propeller.
Consider first the situation where a propeller suffers damage, such as the
loss of part or all of one blade, or distortion of a blade. When the shaft
rotates the centrifugal forces on the propeller boss no longer balance out,
and we have in effect a radial force on the shaft bearing rotating at the
speed of the shaft. This induces the whole hull of the ship to flex and
vibrate as a beam, in both the horizontal and vertical planes. If the shaft
frequency picks up one of the hull natural frequencies the vibration
amplitude may be severe. Hie effect is similar if the propeller is intact but
the shaft is bent.
88
Consider, for example, the effect of a local "shadow" extending over a
small sector of the disc, where the inflow is somewhat slower than
elsewhere. Since the blade sweeps round the disc at constant velocity, it
will find the incidence angle in the shadow increased, with the result that
lift and drag forces rise temporarily to a local peak. These forces have
components up the shaft axis and at right angles to the axis. Since they
fluctuate they are vibratory stimulus forces, and the component square to
the axis can excite vibration of the ship's hull as a beam. (The component
up the shaft represents only a marginal fluctuation superimposed on the
normal propeller thrust, and has only minor effects on the ship).
It will be noted that the frequency of stimulus from the wake effect is
the blade-passage frequency; ie the shaft rotational frequency times the
number of blades. A four-bladed screw turning at 120 RPM has a blade-
passage frequency of 480 cycles per minute, or 8 hertz.
If wake-effect vibration is encountered, various palliative measures
are possible. Fins can be added to< the hull to modify the velocity
distribution through the disc; the number of propeller blades can be
increased to raise the frequency and reduce the amplitude of the stimulus;
and the blades can be "skewed back" so that each blade transits the
shadow progressively and not all at once. However, a complete cure can
rarely be achieved by these means,
Pressure Effects -
We can regard the wake effect as the hull acting upon the propeller
through the influence of its frictional wake. With pressure effects, we have
the propeller acting upon the hull through the influence of its pressure
field.
But the suction field is not confined to the back skin of the propeller
blade; it extends some way out into the water, and acts upon any solid
body which happens to be placed there. Thus, if the blade suction field
impinges on any part of the hull plating as the blade sweeps round, then
89
that area of plating will suffer a transient suction force.
Cavitation
The nature of cavitation and the manner of its occurrence on and near
propeller blades has been discussed in earlier chapters. It will be recalled
that cavitation is undesirable for a variety of reasons, and it is for the most
part avoided by limiting the load per unit area of the propeller blade, and
by choosing the blade section to give a uniform rather than peaky suction
distribution over the back. Tip-vortex cavitation can be minimised by
adjusting the distribution of lift along the radius to avoid a peak near the
tip-
The forces from cavitation are sharp and peaky, and are most
noticeable inboard rather as noise than as vibration. Doubtless they
contribute to the general level of vibration, as an addition to that already
present from wake and pressure effects; the noise, however, is quite
separate and is distinctive from its sizzling and banging nature.
Singing
Occasionally one meets a propeller which emits a continuous Audio-
frequency tone or whistle through the water. This is known as singing; it is
a source of annoyance to crew and passengers, and a gift to hostile
submarines, though hardly a serious detriment to performance. The
singing is attributable to the mechanical elastic vibration of individual
blades, much in the manner of a bell or gong.
90
For such vibration to be sustained it needs to be fed with mechanical
energy. The origin of this energy can be sought in the nature of the water
flow round the trailing edge of the blade. The hydrodynamically ideal
shape for the blade trailing edge would be a sharp thin knife-edge, but in
the real world such an edge would be highly vulnerable to damage from
floating objects and impossible to maintain. It is much more practical to
round off the blade edge into a blunt circular or elliptical section, and this
is usually done. But we have already seen that bodies with rounded sterns
will suffer from separation of flow, and that the position of the point at
which separation takes place may be unstable. Consider what happens if
the separation point moves forward on one surface; it will then move aft on
the,other. Recovery pressures are greater on the unseparated side than on
the other, so that there is a net force deflecting the blade tail towards the
separated side.
The blade now twists eiastieally under this force, so changing the
incidence of flow so that the separation point on the separated side slips
aft and that on the other side moves forward in response. The force
reverses, pushing the blade in the opposite direction. The cycle repeats,
and the vibration is sustained with energy abstracted from the water flow.
It will be seen that there are some similarities with the flow
phenomena encountered in the elliptical-sterned craft discussed in an
earlier chapter. The curative treatment is also similar. The elliptical
trailing edge on the propeller blade is chiselled away, leaving a bevelled
edge with sharply-angled corners. The corners anchor down the separation
points and the cyclic action disappears.
Wave-induced Vibration
We now come to the only serious kind of water-related vibration that is not
associated with the propeller. This is the beam-flexure type of vibration of
the whole hull which is stimulated by repeated encounter of the bow with
the waves of the sea. It is sometimes referred to as springing, and is
usually associated only with the largest ships.
91
in waves with periods in the range 8 to 16 seconds. Note that these figures
are for wave crests passing a point fixed in the sea; they must be
distinguished from ship wave encounter periods, which are affected by the
speed of the ship.
For ships smaller than VLCCs the period of the fundamental vibration
of a ship's hull as a beam is of the order of a second or less, so that such a
ship is well clear of resonance with energetic waves. She may perhaps
resonate with shorter waves, but these have so little energy in them that
the response is not enough to worry about.
With the very large vessels now in service the situation is different.
The increase in dimensions and mass, together with the acceptance of
higher stresses in high-tensile materials, has lengthened the natural
period of beam-style vibration so that natural periods as long as 3 or even
4 seconds are possible.
The ship now gets under way and heads into wind at 20 knots. The
speed relative to wave crests now goes up to 44 knots, and as a result the
encounter period drops to 4^2 seconds. We are now very close to
resonance. If there are waves in the sea spectrum marginally below 100
metres long, or if we increase ship speed to 24 knots, we shall have full
resonance, and the ship will spring continuously as long as these s^as are
beingmet. ..
\
It will be seen that the very large ships, particularly in the loaded
condition when their periods are longest, can quite easily get intd the
resonant condition and experience springing. This form of oscillation, can
persist for hours on end and be a source of crew discomfort and fatigue
failure in stressed parts of the hull.
As a preventive measure against springing, the building of structural
damping or damping mechanisms into the ship is a theoretical possibility.
A system using a resonant tank of water supported on an air-cushion,
analogous in a way to the tank roll-damper, was demonstrated son the
model scale and in a naval destroyer in the early 1970s, but was not
developed further. A simpler and more economical treatment for springing
is the operational one: the ship's officers should simply alter course or
speed or both so as to change the period of wave encounter away from the
resonant value.
92
Diagnosing vibration causes
Naval architects seeking the source of vibrations experienced in a ship will
usually begin by measuring the frequencies present in various parts of the
structure. Predominance of shaft frequencies suggests propeller or shaft
damage, or defects such as manufacturers' errors in blade dimensioning.
Blade passage frequencies suggest wake or pressure effects. Main-engine
crankshaft or cylinder-firing frequencies point to inboard mechanical
origin^. Sometimes all frequencies are present together, making life more
difficult. However, the predominant frequencies usually give pointers as to
where to investigate in more detail.
*
Ship's officers reporting vibrations should do their best to pick out the
predominant frequencies; this Is difficult without specialised instruments,
but sometimes a good indication can be obtained by means as simple as
drawing a pencil line freehand across a piece of paper stuck to deck or
bulkhead over a period of, say, 10 seconds; the squiggles may be clear
enough to count. The record of any such observations should indicate the
propeller shaft RPM at which the records were taken, together with ship's
loading conditions, sea state and other relevant circumstances.
From an the foregoing it will be seen that a ship interacts with the water
that supports her in a most complex and intricate manner. Many experts
have studied the process, and no doubt will continue long to do so,
because none among them would claim that every last subtlety is yet fully
understood, or that ship performance and safety have reached anything
like perfection.
This short book does not claim to have done more than introduce the
general reader, somewhat briefly and superficially, to selected aspects of
the enormous subject of ship hydrodynamics. The book will, however, have
served its purpose if it encourages mariners and those who have business
in ships to look over the side with an enlivened curiosity at the water
rushing past, and to wonder at the remarkable way in which it behaves,
sometimes to our benefit, sometimes to our injury. And perhaps some
readers will be persuaded to seek further enlightenment by plunging into
the more solemn and profound depths of the technical literature.
93
INDEX
Added mass 46 Group velocity 17
Agulhas Current 36 GRP 78
Air lubrication 7 Helicoid 54
Angle of entry- 28 HMS CAPTAIN 82
Angle of vanishing stability- 80 Hovercraft 7, 30
Archimedes of Syracuse 2 Hydrofoil craft 30
Bank effects 39 Hydrofoils 51
Bathythermographs 4 Hydrophobic paint 12
Bernoulli 37 Ice 1
Berthing loads 46 Ideal fluids 70
Bilge keel 76, 87 Inclining experiment 83
Blade-passage frequency 89 Knuckles 78
Boiling 10 Laminar flow 69
Bore 33 Lateral-thru st unit 65
Bottom suction 38 Lift 47
Boundary layer 69 Lines-generating systems 68
Bow Long-chain molecules 7
-and-buttock lines 68 Main hump 18
bulbous 76 Measured mile speed trials 32
cushion 40 Metacentre 82
rudder 65 Metacentric height 82
Broaching 24 Naval replenishment-at-sea 43
Bubble collapse 50 Ogival 53
erosion 58 Overtaking 42
Canal barges 33 Paddle-wheel effect 59
Cat's paws 14 Paradox of D'AIembert 70
Cavitation 11, 49, 90 Pitch 54
Celerity 15 Pitching 86
Centripetal acceleration 63 Pivoting point 66
Clapotis 20 Pneumatic breakwater 35
Clearance 38 Pooping 24
Competitive rowing and sailing events 32 Propellers 53
Corresponding speed 29 controllable pitch or CP 58
Currents 33 damaged 88
Damping 86 raked , 57
tank 87 variable pitch 1 58
Density 1 Properties of water
94
strain 4 Tugs 42
stress 4 Tunnels 78
Sheer 41 Turbulent
Ship-ship interaction 42 flow 69
Shoals and steering 44 wake 72
Singing 90 Under-keel clearance 38, 44, 66
Skew 56 Unloaded tips 58
Skin Ventilation 51
friction 5 Vibration 88
friction force 27 Virtual mass 45
Sound waves 3 Viscosity 4
Spray Viscous drag 5
generation 8 W. Froude 29
rails 9 Wake
Springing 91 effects 88
Squat 37 frictional 71
Stabilisation 80 shadow 56, 60, 89
Stabilisers 86 Waterlines 68
Stability 80 Wave
directional 65 -energy recoveiy devices 15
Stall \ 49, 52 -induced vibration 91
Steadiness 80 -making resistance 17, 26
Steering 62 capillary 12, 14
Stream lines 70 encounter periods 92
Submarine 3 gravity 13
Suction field 89 in shallow water 20
Surface tension 7 ocean 13
Tactical diameter of translation 21
Tip vortex 57 propagation 15
Trailing vortices 75 steep-fronted 22
Transom sterns 75 tidal 23
Transverse stability 39 Wind against tide 36
Tsunamis 23 Yaw 64
95