Wind/Wave and Current Effects on Cargo Ships

[MattD]

Hey all. I work at marine weather routing company and have been in the process of updating and enhancing our current ship routing program.


Using your expertise, I am looking to see if you knew, or can lead me in the direction to someone who would know, the specific calculations used to determine wind/wave factor/effect as well as ocean current factor/effect on a particular cargo vessel. I understand there are likely particular tables utilizing these "speed reduction curves". I understand there may be other factors, such as Dead Weight tonnage of the vessel.

Any knowledge or insight you may have in regards to these speed reduction curves and specific calculations would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
Matt

[DaveB]

Hey,

Most Naval Architecture faculties have professors that research seakeeping and develop software tools. Professors Troesch and Beck at the University of Michigan might be a good start.

http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/people/people.html

The Princeton Ocean model is somewhat of an industry standard for predicting ocean conditions and several other models have been developed based on it.

All the best,

Dave

[marshmat]

Some of the most sophisticated seakeeping research today is done at the National Research Council's Institute for Ocean Technology, http://iot-ito.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/about_e.html They do a lot of racing yacht work but they also do research on cargo, fishing and icebreaking vessels. You might try contacting them.

[french44]

hey matt,
I'm working for big cruising vessels shipyards and when we need factor due to wave or wind we used towing tanks data .you can find some good data on MARINE , MARINTEK or DMI web site they are europeen towing tanks and they have very big knowledge on it.Otherwise you can estimate the speed lost due to wind with the standard calculation (BSRA or iso rules for speed trials tests),for the wave you can use Michelet or other CFD software

[windjammer56]

Hello Matt,
Sounds like a very interesting project. While disaster potential waves may occur anywhere. There are many areas where currents and other conditions cause these to occur more frequently.
You will probably find this page interesting for calculating the freak wave potential of a set of ordinary wind waves. http://www.math.uio.no/~karstent/waves/index_en.html My theory is that an area of wind blown storm waves create their own wake wave which interacts with the regular waves to create the rogue wave of extra height and usually at different angle than the common waves.

[MadMat]

Does the wave spectra of the seaway have a significant impact on speed reduction, or can you just use (an educated guess on my part here) the mean wave height, and wavelength.