Affiliations: M. Tech Student, Department of Ocean Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India | Associate Professor, Department of Ocean Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India
Abstract: Now-a-days, a large number of marine vehicles are being developed to
meet the increased demand for inland and coastal transportation services. Among
these marine vehicles, the catamaran type is very popular due to its large deck
area, adequate stability, good resistance and sea-keeping qualities. Since the
propulsive power of any marine vehicle mainly depends on its resistance
characteristics, it is essential to develop a suitable hull form of the marine
vehicle in order to obtain better resistance characteristics which contemplate
primarily on fuel economy. In the initial design stage, the propulsive power is
usually predicted analytically by any one of the existing power prediction
methods. But, however, it is necessary to conduct model tests to obtain the
final hull form. Hence, for the present study, a 1:12 scale catamaran model was
fabricated with change in bow and stern shapes and tested for three hull
spacings in the towing tank at Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian
institute of technology Madras, Chennai-600 036, India. The model test results
are analyzed and presented with discussions in this paper.
Keywords: Catamaran, demihulls, bow and stern shapes, gap ratio, resistance, interference factor
