An Investigation into Resistance Characteristics of Rectangular Barges

S Das, Non-member O P Sha, Member S C Misra, Fellow

The components of a blunt ended barge have been studied. The frictional resistance is primarily two-dimensional since the sides and bottom are straight without any curvature. ITTC 1957 friction line can be used to predict this value. A large portion of the drag is due to separation at the forward end which is a function of the area of the forward end and B/T. The wave making drag is primarily due to fore body since the shoulders do not exist and aft wave is subdued due to boundary layer and aft separation. A resistance formulation has been made based on these principles. A large number of barge models have been made including sloped fore end and aft end. All the models have been tested in the Ship Hydrodynamics Laboratory of IIT Kharagpur. Regression analysis has been done on all the resistance data to obtain the coefficients of various drag components. Based on these values ,resistance has been predicted and compared with measured values. The comparison is satisfatory.

Keywords: Frictional resistance; Blunt end; Separation; Fore body; Shoulder; Boundary layer; Aft

represents the largest capital investment and also operating cost , serves a number of barges. An important application of the barges is to use these as an intermodal transport system. For example BACAT, LASH and SEABEA2 are barge carrying ships which need not berth in congested ports, can discharge their cargo of barges at sea outside the port and the barges can be towed hinterland by tugs if they do not have their own propulsion mechanism. The towing performance affects the barge operation, scheduling and ultimately its commercial success in service. Rising fuel cost has affected the towing requirement of the tug-barge system even though the economics of the barges as a waterborne transport system is still very attractive. The designer of the tug-barge system requires accurate prediction of the towing performance of a barge, specifically, its resistance and course stability during towing operation. Theoretical methods or systematic model test data for estimating the towing resistance of barges are rare. No specific guidelines have been suggested by the International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC) with regard to performance prediction methods for the blunt ended vessels from model test data. Latorre, et al 3 have presented a theoretical method to predict the course stability of a barge. This paper attempts to examine the nature of the various components of resistance of barge forms with blunt end and sloped fore and aft ends and suggests a procedure for predicting resistance of barges with blunt ends with and without end slopes with varying length to breadth and breadth to draught ratios. RESISTANCE OF SHIPS AND BARGES The total resistance of a ship is made up of mainly two components: viscous resistance and wave-making resistance. A practical method of extrapolating model resistance to full scale ship was postulated by William Froude by expressing resistance as consisting of two components: frictional resistance and residuary resistance. Figure1 gives the components of bare hull resistanceof a surface ship 4.. As per Froude, IE (I) Journal -

INTRODUCTION Barges, towed or pushed by tugs, are important modes of transporting waterborne cargo. Barges are popular for river transportation and short transit in harbours and sheltered waters. They are also used for transporting cargo along the coast and for offshore operations. The barge system in inland and coastal waters at low speed has, over the years, grown into an important segment of the marine industry. This is because they offer flexible means of transportation of large volume of verity of low cost bulk or packaged cargo. A number of barge designs have been developed in response to the demands of the tug-barge operations in inland, coastal, and trans-ocean waterways. All these barges have many unique features, but all rely on a tug for movement. The barge hull forms have block coefficient close to one. The barges are also fitted with skeg(s) at the aft body to reduce yaw during towing operation. The variety of barge designs is partly due to the different ways in which the tugs are mated with the barges. The tug can either pull the barge using a towing hawser, or push it from behind, either with one tugboat fastened to the barge system at the transom stern or secured in a stern notch to form an integrated tug-cum-barge unit, Miller, et al 1. The essential characteristics of a tug-barge system for cargo transportation lie in the interchangeability of the propulsion plant, ie, the tug, with the cargo carrying units, ie, barges. The barge can be viewed as a large container for the cargo to be carried. The separation of function between the tug and the barge results in economy both in capital investment and operating cost and permits flexibility in operations. In a well-developed tug-barge system, each tug, which
S Das, O P Sha and S C Misra are with the Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302 . This paper was received on October 25 2004. Written discussion on the paper will be received till October 31, 2005.

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CT = CR + C F
where

(1)

C =

RR RF RT ,CF = ,CR = . 1 1 1 2 2 S S S 2 2 2 2

Ignoring small quantities and using dimensional analysis, C T can be shown as 5

CT = 2 + f L = f 1 (Fn ) + f 2 (R n ) = f 1 gL 2 1 2 S 2 RT

(2)

where Froude number Fn =

gL

, and Reynolds number

L . Frictional resistance is based on Reynolds number and residuary resistance dependent in on Froude number. The frictional resistance is estimated from the ITTC(1957) friction formulation which is basically for two-dimensional flow and is given as Rn =

Considering flow around three-dimensional bodies such as ship forms, stream lines originating at forward end sharply go down as these move towards mid-ship and again come up near the stern. Thus streamline length is much more than that of a straight line in two-dimensional flow5. Further, due to high normal pressure at forward and aft ends, velocity of flow reduces at ends6 and is high at the middle region. These effects give an increase in frictional resistance over and above the two-dimensional flow having the same Reynolds number. This increase in resistance is entirely due to form of the body and is represented by the form factor ( k). Thus, the total frictional resistance is given as (1+k )CF . The form factor k is taken to be independent of both Reynolds number and Froude number or independent of model scale and speed. The usual method of determining k experimentally is to use the measured resistance values at low speeds using Prohaskas method 7 . However, uncertainly analysis of experimental results involving measurement of small values at low speeds shows that the uncertainty over the value of k calculated this way is rather high making determination of k unreliable. Therefore many towing tanks do not use the form factor method of extrapolation in predicting full scale resistance even though it is recommended by ITTC 8 . For rectangular barge forms which are primarily twodimensional, k can be taken as zero. Another component of viscous drag is the drag due to separation. When the fluid velocity is low in the forward and aft regions, and if the fluid has to negotiate high-pressure gradient (caused due to sharp curvature on the body surface), it is unable to do so and separates from the body shedding small eddies or vortices. The energy spent in generating these eddies is termed as separation drag. An extreme case of the presence of high separation drag is the fore end of a blunt ended barge 9,10. If the barge fore end is perpendicular to flow, there will be high separation in the fore end adding to the viscous drag. However, if the fore end is sloped, the fore end separation may reduce. Separation in the aft end is further affected by the existence of boundary layer. Sometimes it is preferable to have clean separation at well-defined sharp curvatures rather than separation spreads over a wide region. An example of clean separation is the planing craft hull form where sharp curvatures are given in the form of chine lines and transom stern to aid clean separation at these points. Taking the case of a rectangular barge with vertical transom stern, it can be observed that there will be clean separation at the stern. The drag due to this will be stunted by the existence of the boundary layer. If the transom was sloped, the area of separation increases and so the total resistance may be more than the corresponding drag due to vertical transom stern. Wave making resistance is the drag of the total wave system due to steady forward speed of the vessel and the total wave system can be considered to be the linear superposition of all individual wave systems. There are five wave systems associated with a conventional ship. (i) A symmetric surface disturbance with high pressure forward and aft which moves with the ship and due to symmetry does not absorb any energy ; (ii) A bow wave system due to angle of entrance on water line 15

CF =

0.075 [log10 Rn 2 ]2

(3)

The coefficient of frictional resistance calculated using the above formulation should match well with bodies having predominantly two-dimensional flow around them such as rectangular barges and wall-sided vessels.

Total Resistance, CT

Residuary Resistance, CR

Skin Friction Resistance, CF (equivalent flat plate) Form Effect on Skin Friction

Pressure Resistance, CP (normal stress)

Viscous Pressure Resistance, CVP Wave Making Resistance, CW

Three-dimensional Frictional Resistance, CF (tangential stress)

Total Viscous Resistance, CV Total Resistance, CT

Figure 1 Breakdown of resistance into components

Vol 86, July 2005

starting with a crest. A well-designed bulb placed just below the free surface can reduce this wave system considerably ; (iii) A forward shoulder wave system starting somewhere near the forward shoulder with a trough ; (iv) An aft shoulder wave system starting somewhere near the aft shoulder with a trough ; and (v) An aft wave system starting at the stern with a crest. The final wave profile around a ship is the linear superposition of these five wave systems. Due to viscosity of water, there develops a boundary layer around the ship that is considered to be thin using Prandtls thin boundary layer theory. Then the turbulence in flow is limited within the bounary layer and the flow around the ship is considered to be of potential nature beyond the boundary layer. Boundary layer thickness increase from zero at the forward end to aft end based on (approximately) Reynolds number. For potential flow calculations, the effective hull shape changes towards the aft reducing the waterline slope.Thus the normal pressure in the aft reduces compared to what it would have been if there were no boundary layer. This results in reduced amplitude of the waves as one moves aft from the forward end. In the extreme case of rectangular barges, the component of the wave making resistance due to bow waves will be there though the forward wave system may slightly be stunted due to forward separation of flow. The forward and aft shoulder waves will not be there since there is no curvatures of the body or no shoulder. The stern generated wave will be nearly totally destroyed due to the boundary layer and flow separation at stern. Thus the total wave making resistance of a blunt barge form will be entirely due to forward wave making only. It can be observed that the fore body of a barge form contributes in a major way to the total resistance of a ship, may it be the separation drag or the wave making resistance. This paper deals with model experiments of rectangular barges of varying end slopes and geom etry. A set of 17 vessels has been tested for calm water resistance consisting of rectangular barges having verTable 1 Overall test matrix for Barge Models Model Slope of Slope of Length Breadth, Name Forward Aft End on m End to to Waterline, Vertical, Vertical, m degree degree A 0 0 1.200 0.203 B 0 0 2.400 0.404 C 0 0 1.200 0.404 D 0 0 2.400 0.812 E 75 0 1.387 0.203 F 75 0 2.773 0.404 I 0 0 1.200 0.607 J 0 0 1.200 0.812 K 0 0 1.200 0.203 L 0 0 1.200 0.607 M 0 0 1.200 0.812 N 0 0 1.200 0.404 P 45 0 1.250 0.203 Q 70 0 1.337 0.203 R 80 0 1.484 0.203 S 0 0 2.750 0.750 T 0 65.5 2.557 0.750 Draft, L/B B/T Wetted m Surface, m2

0.2 m 1.2 m Profile 0.203 m Sections

Deck Half Breadth Plan

Figure 2 Barge model A of type I

D CBA D

0.2 m 1.25 m Profile

0.2 m
45o
A B C

0.203 m Sections Deck 0.05 m

Half Breadth Plan

Figure 3 Barge model E with 45 0 slope at the forward

tical and sloped aft and forward ends. The results have been analyzed and presented in the next sections. MODEL TEST OF RECTANGULAR AND SLOPED BARGES A total of 17 rectangular barge configurations were tested at the Ship Hydrodynamics Laboratory of the Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture of IIT, Kharagpur . Table 1 shows the dimensions and dimensional ratios of various barge configurations. The various configurations were achieved by joining standard barge modules of length 1.2 m and breadth 0.203 m and length 1.2 m and breadth 0.404 m. The barges A and B are geosims and so are barges C and D. It may further be observed that barges B and N have same frontal shape with different lengths. Similar is the case with barges D and M. A total of 11 barges have the front end as vertical ends with no slope. Remaining five have varying sloped forward ends the angle to the vertical being as shown in thetable. The sloped ends were made as separate modules with slope starting at a depth equal to the draft of the vessel. Figure 2 shows the basic barge form (Model A). Figure 3 shows sloped ended barge model with an angle of 45 which has been generated by attaching a sloped end piece (Model E). Model E and Model F are geosim with scale of 2. The towing tank has a dimension of 150.0 m 4.0 m 2.0 m and is equipped with a towing carriage with Kempf and Remmers dynamometer. Though the models are quite small, care has been taken to see that the tests are done in turbulent flow regime. No blockage effect has been considered. ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The total resistance of a barge can be considered to consist of three components: (a) Skin friction which is equal to 0 . 5 SV 2 C F where is the density of water, S is the wetted surface, V is the ship speed and CF is the flat plate coefficient of friction taken as equal to IE (I) Journal -

0.050 0.100 0.050 0.100 0.050 0.100 0.050 0.050 0.100 0.100 0.100 0.100 0.050 0.050 0.050 0.162 0.162

5.91 5.94 2.97 2.96 6.83 6.86 1.98 1.48 5.91 1.98 1.48 2.97 6.15 6.59 7.31 3.67 3.41

4.06 4.04 8.08 8.12 4.06 4.04 12.00 16.24 2.03 6.07 8.12 4.04 4.06 4.06 4.06 4.63 4.63

0.3839 1.5317 0.6452 2.5808 0.4223 1.6849 0.9091 1.1756 0.5242 0.9091 1.3768 0.8056 0.3910 0.4103 0.4464 3.2000 2.8400

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IITC57 formulation. Since the barge sides and bottom are twodimensional, there will not be any form factor for three-dimensional effects. (b) The separation drag due to front end that is a function of the frontal area and a constant depending on the breadth and draught and speed. It has been assumed that the constant term is directly proportional to B/T . Thus this drag is equal to 0.5 V 2 k2(B/T) Af , where Af is the frontal area and is equal to B/T in all the barges considered here. This component and the previous component together constitute the total viscous drag where the skin friction depends on Reynolds number but the separation drag is independent of Reynolds number. (c) Wave making drag that is predominantly due to the bow wave. Even though the bow wave is likely to be reduced due to front separation, it will be there. There will be no shoulder waves due to two-dimensional nature of the sides. The stern wave will be highly reduced and may be negligible. Thus the wave making resistance will depend on the front shape and not on the whole length or, the conventional length Froude number. So the wave making resistance will be equal to a constant x V 6. Writing it in ter ms of Froude number, it will be

D,respectively. The comparison in case of model D is not very good and could be due to inaccuracies involved in measurements mentioned earlier or ignoring form factor all together which could be there due to separation at the aft end. Model N and B have the same fore body shape. Similarly models D and M have the same fore body shape. Figures 5 and 6 also show the measured resisTotal Resistance(measured) , N

Resistance Analysis - All Barges 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 Total Resistance (estimated) , N

Figure 4 Total estimated resistance against measured resistance for all barges

Bow seperation resistance Resistance of model B extrapolated from A Measured resistance of model N Measured resistance of model B

1 RT = 2 [ S C F + A f k2 ( B T ) + Sc k3 ( Fnc )nc ] (4) 2

To analyse the experimental data a characteristic length of 0.3 m has been taken for the standard model A for calculating Fnc that contri butes to the wave-making resistance due to the forward end. For other models the characteristic length has been changed proportional to scale of fore body shape. MATLAB* software has been used to calculate coefficients k 2 ,k 3 and nc for each model separately and then their effect has been studied to get the final values of coefficients. The accuracy of fit is subject to uncertainties arising out of measurements in disturbed flow (large separation at fore end) conditions over the entire speed range, measurement of very low speed and resistance values and prob-able existence of laminar flow at low speeds in smaller models and blockage effect at higher speeds for larger models. To see the overall effect of regression fit, the estimated resistance has been plotted against measured resistance and is shown in Figure 4. The mean line through all the points is the 45 line indicating good fit. Model B is a geosim of model A with a scale of 2. Similarly model D is a geosim of model C with a scale of 2. Measured resistance values of models A and C have been extrapolated using Froude extrapolation method to predict the resistances of models B and D respectively. Only the Reynolds number dependent component involving CF has been calculated using ITTC line and the remaining part has been extrapolated from model values as per Froude's law. The comparison of measure and estimated resistance is shown in Figures 5 and 6 for models B and Vol 86, July 2005

Resistance , N

1 k3 ( Fnc )nc Sc where the suffix c indicates a charac2 teristic value of the fore body based on a length para- meter L representing the fore body. L c should remain same for c all barges with same fore body (namely, B and N, D and M). The power term nc should be of the order of 4. Thus

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Speed , m/s 1.2 1.4

Figure 5 Resistance of barge models A, B and N

Bow seperation resistance Resistance of model D extrapolated from C Measured resistance of model M Measured resistance of model D

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 Speed , m/s

Figure 6 Resistance of barge models C, D and M.

Resistance , N

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0.0 0.2

Resistance , N

Rt est Rt meas Rt ext from E

0.4

0.6 0.8 Speed , m/s

1.0

1.2

1.4

Figure 7 Comparison of measured resistance of model F to the extrapolated resistance from its geosim model E

17

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 B /T 12 14 16 18

slope for varying B/T is expected to be the same. Figure 10 shows the comparison of resistance between the models S and T where it is found that the resistance of model T is higher than that of model S. This is because of quick clean separation at stern for model S compared to that of T due to sloped stern. DISCUSSION The flow around a rectangular barge is essentially two-dimensional. Therefore, the frictional resistance should also follow nearly two-dimensional formulations. In this work the ITTC 1957 friction formulation has been used without any form factor. The remaining portion of total resistance is due to separation drag of mainly the fore body and wave making resistance due to fore body. The wave making resistance is not dependent on the length of the barge, but on the forebody shape. Based on this, a resistance formulation has been presented for blunt ended barges. Resistance tests have been carried out for a large number of rectangular barges with vertical fore and aft ends and also barges with varying end slopes and geometry (L/B and B/ T ratios). The proposed resistance formulation given in equation(4) has been verified by comparison with actual measured model resistance values. Also geosims have been tested and extrapolated resistance from one have been compared with the other. Ignoring experimental errors, the agreement between measured and estimated resistance is quite satisfactory. The fore body separation drag forms a major portion of the total drag. Comparison of resistance of two barges having similar fore bodies but different lengths shows that the resistance of smaller vessel is higher than that of the longer vessel at the same speed. This is indicative of the fact that though the fore body contribution is same in both cases, the separation drag at stern for the smaller vessel is perhaps higher than the larger vessel sufficiently to suppress the increased frictional resistance. This could be due to unequal separation phenomena at aft end because of different thickness of deve-loped boundary layers. Similarly, it has been observed that a barge with a sloped aft end has higher resistance than that of a vertical aft end. This is perhaps due to the fact that the sloped aft end has a longer spread of aft separation compared with that on the other barge. Unlike the aft end, the separation drag due to fore end reduces drastically if the fore end is sloped. There is almost a linear drop in the value of the coefficient of separation k 2 with the slope angle (with the vertical) increasing from 0 to 80 when it becomes nearly 0. For rectangular fore ends the value of k2 also reduces with increase in B/T . The value of k2 is high at B/T =2 but reduces drastically till B/T =4. With B/T increasing further, the drop in k2 is slow. At B/T =16, it reaches almost a constant value. Though a large number of experiments have been conducted, all deductions are not conclusive. It is necessary to conduct experiments on sloped ended barges with varying B/T values. It is also necessary to understand the aft separation phenomenon so that the variables on which it depends can be identified. It is expected that such work will continue. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The entire model making and experimental work has been conducted at the Ship Hydrodynamics Laboratory of the Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture of IIT, Kharagpur with the help of the Laboratory staff. Their help is gratefully acknowledged. REFERENCES
1. A D Miller, J Barbosa and R Latorre. Analysis of Tug-bargeIE (I) Journal Connection Force Measurements. Marine Technology , vol 38 , no 2 , 2001, p 130. 2. T Taggart (ed). Ship Design and Construction. SNAME, USA, 1980. 3. R Latorre and F Ashcroft . Recent Developments in Barge Design, Towing and Pushing . Marine Technology , vol 18, no 1, 1981, p 10.

Figure 8 Variation of coefficient k 2 with breadth draft ratio for blunt ended barges

k2

0.2 0.16
k2

0.12 0.08 0.04 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Forward End Slope , degree

Figure 9 Variation of coefficient k 2 with slope of forward end for T=4

B/

both blunt : S ford blunt aft sloped: T 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 Speed , m/s
Figure 10 Comparison of resistance test data between S (blunt model) and T (ford blunt and aft sloped)

tance curves for models N and M respectively. Figures also show the contribution of fore body alone, ie, the second term of equation (4) which is a very large portion of total resistance. Interestingly both models N and M have larger resistance than models B and D , respectively though these are smaller in length. Models with smaller length may experience a large separation drag at aft end which may be subdued in longer models due to existence of thicker boundary layer at the stern. This difference could be large enough to counter the increased frictional drag of longer models. Figure 7 shows the comparison of measured resistance of barge model F to the extrapolated resistance from barge model E using the present formulation. Figure 8 shows the sharp drop of coefficient k2 as breath-draft ratio increases or the vessel becomes broader for the same draft. The effect of forward slope was studied by doing experiments on barges with 4 slope angles: 45, 70, 75 and 80. The forward slope was expected to reduce the forward separation drag and so k2 should reduce. Figure 9 shows the variation of k2 with slope angle for a fixed B/T =4. Though no other tests have been conducted, the nature of k2 variation with 18 MR

Resistance ,N