A NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION

OF AIR LUBRICATION EFFECT

ON SHIP RESISTANCE
Ali Dorul
Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
Yildiz Technical University

TURKIYE

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

OUTLINES
OBJECTIVE

INTRODUCTION
COMPUTATIONAL

RESULTS

MODEL

and DISCUSSION

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

OBJECTIVE

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

Objective
In this study,
The air lubrication method is presented and the effect of air
lubrication on resistance of a chemical tanker is investigated
numerically.
Five different Froude numbers are taken into account.
Computational solution is performed by using Standart k-
turbulence model with enhanced-wall treatment.
Design speed of the tanker is 14 knots.
Effects of the air lubrication are investigated by taking two
different air velocities, V=0.1 m/s and 0.72 m/s.
Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

Main particulars of the chemical tanker

Length between perp., LBP

87.55 m

Waterline length, LWL

89.38 m

Breadth, B

14.26 m

Depth, D

6.85 m

Draught, T

5.42 m

Displacement,
Block coefficient, CB

5500 ton
0.77

Wetted Area, S

945 m2

Design speed, VS

14 knot

Air inlet position, % LWL

behind FP

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

% 10

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

INTRODUCTION

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

 For

reduced fuel consumption and for low CO2 emissions on

ships, it is desired to reduce the ship drag. The drag force is
divided into form drag and frictional drag.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

 There are many possibilities to reduce the form drag by

means of form optimization procedures. A reduction in the
frictional drag depends on the wetted surface area of the ship
and the fluid flow around it.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

 Because of the difficulty of changing the wetted surface

area, an application to vary the viscosity or the boundary layer
around the ship has to be made. There are three general
approaches about air lubrication:
9 Injection of air bubbles (micro bubbles) along the hull
9Air films under the hull
9Air cavities in the bottom of the hull

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

10

 The micro bubble method gives the possibility to reduce the

friction with the less need of change in the present hull form of
the ship instead of other applications.
The application of the micro bubble method reduces the
surface friction by a variation of the viscosity of the fluid around
the ship and makes a modification in the structure of the
turbulent boundary layer.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

11

Bubbles generated
by supplying air to
the vessels bottom

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

12

 In this work, micro bubble method is applied on a chemical

tanker to reduce the ship resistance. The analyses are made
by a CFD program FLUENT by considering ships wetted
surface area as a flat plate.
The analyses are carried out firstly without air lubrication for
a comparison with the results found by the ITTC 1957 formula
for validation.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

13

ITTC 1957 formula

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

14

COMPUTATIONAL MODEL

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

15

 Computational

domain used in this paper is taken as threedimensional (3-D).

Ships length is equal to the length of the flat plate.
The breadth of the flat plate is 10.58 m.
Bubble diameter is chosen as 10 m.
The computational domain is decomposed into 500x100x100
structured non-uniform grid in the x-, y- and z- directions.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

16

Boundary conditions
LWL

LWL

Stern

Bow
Air Inlet

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

17

 Froude number used in analyses are 0.1, 0.2, 0.24, 0.3 and
0.4.
Air velocities are; V=0.1 m/s and 0.72 m/s.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

18

Governing equations and assumptions:

Standart k- turbulence model with near-wall treatment.

Equations discretized using first order upwind

interpolation scheme.
The solution is considered converged when the
continuity residual is lower than 10-6 and all the other
variables is lower than 10-5.
Solved using SIMPLE algorithm.
Approximately 400000 elements used for mesh
structure.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

19

Mesh structure

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

20

CF values gathered from ITTC and CFD

for validation
CF *103
Fn

ITTC

CFD

(%)

0.1

1.9

1.9

2.8

0.2

1.7

1.7

3.2

0.2

1.6

1.7

3.3

0.3

1.6

1.7

3.4

0.4

1.5

1.6

3.5

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

21

Relaxation factors used for turbulence

model
k-
Pressure

0.3

Density

Body forces

Momentum

0.7

Slip velocity

0.1

Volume fraction

0.2

Turb.kin. en.(k)

0.2

Turb.kin.en. diss.rate ()

0.2

Turbulent viscosity

0.2

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

default

22

RESULTS and DISCUSSION

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

23

Effects of the air lubrication on the flat plate is showed in

Figure 1 for bubble velocity 0.72, Figure 2 for bubble
velocity 0.1 m/s.

In the figures, red color stands for air (phase=1) and blue
shows water (phase=0).

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

24

(a) Fn=0.1

(b) Fn=0.2

(c) Fn=0.24

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

25

(d) Fn=0.3

(e) Fn=0.4

Vb=0.72 m/s

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

26

(a) Fn=0.1

(b) Fn=0.2

(c) Fn=0.24

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

27

(d) Fn=0.3

(e) Fn=0.4

Vb=0.1 m/s

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

28

For air velocity of 0.72 m/s, the gain obtained from the air
lubrication method for low Froude numbers reach % 57.
This gain decreases by the increase of the Froude
number and is about % 44.5 in the design speed.
For the case where the air velocity is 0.1 m/s, the gain in
the design speed about % 3 while in low Froude numbers
it can increase up to % 18.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

29

Fn

RF (N)

CF *103

Gain (%)

0,1

3379,90

0,796

57,05

0,2

14596,54

0,859

49,13

0,24

22968,26

0,914

44,48

0,3

37443,85

0,980

38,90

0,4

72543,27

1,068

30,96

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

30

Vb=0.72 m/s

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

31

Fn

RF (N)

CF *103

Gain (%)

0,1

6440,08

1,517

18,16

0,2

27085,74

1,595

5,61

0,24

40072,61

1,595

3,14

0,3

60811,65

1,591

0,77

0,4

106992,79

1,575

-1,83

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

32

Vb=0.1 m/s

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

33

As a conclusion;
In this paper, effect of air lubrication on ship resistance
in a 3-D domain is investigated numerically.
According to the analyses, reduction of drag increases
for low Froude number and high air flow velocity. But the
increase of the air flow velocity may have a negative
effect on the propulsive performance of the ship.
In the next studies, it is considered to investigate the
influence of the air flow velocity and location for the 3-D
ship geometry with propeller.

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

34

Int. Con. on Ship Drag Reduction

35