Ship Resistance P = F \times V [edit] Introduction A ship differs from any other large engineering structure in that in addition

to its other functions it must be designed to move efficiently through water the with a minimu m of external force. It is found that the resistance, depends on the velocity of the ship. Therefore, resistance is always specified at a particular velocity. Furthermore, intuitively we understand that resistance will depend on the condition of the sea. We cannot expect that resistance in a rough sea is the same as in a calm sea. Therefore, operating conditions must also be specified. Therefore , Ship resistance is defined as the force required to tow the ship in calm water at a constant vel ocity. Why is knowing resistance of a ship so important? The answer comes from knowing that the ship is usually a part of a larger transportation system. For the overall transportat ion system to be efficient, it is required that ships operate at a specified "optimim speed". Thi s speed is usually communicated to the naval architect, who must design the ship, so that this spee d is attained. One way to ensure this is to put a very powerful engine in the ship, so for all possible values of resistance, the ship will be able to run at the optimum speed. This solution is clearly not the best. Installing an engine that is more powerfu l than needed, results in higher construction costs, higher operating costs, and higher mainten ance costs. The owner will therefore not accept such a design. If we want to minimize costs, but still attain the desired speed, we must know what resistance to expect at the desired speed. We c an then use the formula for calculating power, to calculate the power of engine required. Since resistance of a ship is not constant, conditions must be specified. There are usually two types of conditions. Service condition refers to the resistance while the ship o perates under real conditions, where there are currents, waves, wind etc. The effect of these facto rs is not very easy to measure or predict, because these conditions are always changing. Another condition defined is the trial condition. This is conducted in relativel y calm water. This is the time when the ship is put to trial to see if the naval architect or ship builder has met all the obligations as specified in the contract with the ship owner. One of these is al so to ensure that the ship is able to attain the optimum speed. Given that it is important for the naval architect to know how much resistance w ill have to be overcome before the ship is made, some way to get this figure must be devised. I n order to do that, we must understand what are the reasons behind this resistance. We therefo

re study the components of resistance.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/thumb/3/39/Hydrostatic_forces.svg/200px -Hydrostatic_forces.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png [edit] Components of Resistance A ship moves on the surface of water. Water is normally taken to be an incompres sible fluid, with low viscosity. However, in order to study the components of resistance, let us begin by assuming that the ship is submerged in an ideal fluid. We then see what changes if the fluid is now viscous and finally look at what happens if we bring the ship to the surface . [edit] Body in Ideal Fluid

Hydrostatic equilibrium Let us assume that the ship is submerged in an infinitely large ideal fluid, so that the ship is far away from the surface. The forces acting on the ship in static equilibrium are t he weight of the ship acting at the centre of gravity, and the pressure forces acting all along t he surface, normal to the surface. If the body is neutrally buoyant, then these forces will be equal a nd opposite. Therefore, the net effect of the hydrostatic forces is to oppose the weight of t he body. Infact, this is what is known as the Archimedes' Principle. If the body is in motion, we first change our frame of reference so that we move with the body and therefore see the fluid in motion in the opposite direction. Now, the pressu re is not purely hydrostatic. Due to the motion of the fluid, and the relation between pressure a nd velocity as given by the Bernoulli's Equation, a hydrodynamic pressure is set up. This press ure varies along the body, and is maximum at the start and end of the body. The forces acting on the body are everywhere normal to the body. We can split th ese forces into components along the direction of motion, and transverse to the direction of mot ion. Due to symmetry of the body, we can see that the transverse forces are in pairs, opposi te and equal, and therefore will cancel out. There need not be symmetry in the longitudanal direct ion, but because the discontinuity in the flow, which was caused by the body, starts and ends wit h the body, the

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/US_Experimental_Model_B asin_-_interior_view%2C_c._1900.jpg/400px-US_Experimental_Model_Basin_-_interior _view%2C_c._1900.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png net opposing forces at the fore end will be the same as the net supporting force s at the aft. Therefore, the net force acting on the body will be zero. This paradox, that a body moving in an ideal fluid in steady state, experiences no resistance, was first proposed by D'Alembert and is known as D'Alemberts paradox. [edit] Body in Viscous Fluid [edit] Body at the surface [edit] Other components of resistance [edit] Dimensional Analysis [edit] Frictional Resistance [edit] Wave making Resistance [edit] Other components of resistance [edit] Model Experiments

A model in a towing tank [edit] Shallow Water Effects [edit] Ship Hull Form and Resistance

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ship_Resistance" Towing Tank Tests By Stuart Slade Updated 19 December 1998 (Typing errors corrected 20 January 2003) Most of the early development work on using tank testing was done by William Fro ude (1810 1879). He was a long-time assistant to I.K. Brunel, initially working on the Bat h and Exeter section of the Great Western Railway. Later, he assisted with the mathematical c alculations on the Great Eastern and did a mathematical analysis on the rolling of ships, the r esults of which stood until the late 1970s (it took computers to beat this guy!) In the early 1860s, Froude was elected to the British Association with a specifi c remit to study the performance of steam ships. At that time there was no way to estimate the po wer required to drive a ship at a specific speed. A lot of work had been done using both models and full-scale ships but the results were "embarrassing and expensive mistakes". Froude opposed an initial series of trials using full-scale ships under tow. He was alone in believing tha t model testing could provide some answers to the puzzles the architects were facing. Pretty well everybody else disagreed with him; all the model work to this date h ad proved nonsensical since the researchers had failed to realize the complexity of resist ance to motion of a floating body. This problem was cracked by Colonel Beaufoy of the Society for th e Improvement of Naval Architecture who showed that the various resistance compone nts of a ship hull all behaved differently (he did the tests in Greenland Dock, Greenwich ). In 1867, Froude did his model tests using models of two different hull shapes (c alled Swan and Raven). Each was built in 3ft, 6ft and 12 ft sizes. He did the runs in Darmouth Creek and observed that when models of either form were run at speeds proportional to the square of their length, they generated virtually identical wave patterns. From this, Froude was able to show that wavemaking resistance was proportional to the weight of the model when run at th is corresponding speed. This became known as Froude's Law. Now we get to the relevant bit. On 24th April 1868, Froude wrote to Edward Reed, the Chief Constructor of the Navy, proposing the construction of an experimental tank and outlining a twoyear research program. In February 1870, their Lordships approved the expenditur e of 2,000 pounds on the tank to be built in the grounds of Froude's house, Chelston Cross in Torquay. ---

A prominent part of the work was dragging flat planks of varying shapes through the water and also repeating the runs using surface finishes of varying types. In an earlier p ost I suggested an experiment to another correspondent which involved taking a 2 foot plank of 4 by 1 timber and cutting it to different degrees of fineness, retaining the 6:1 length to beam ra tio. This was, in fact, a simplified version of Froude's work. Froude's ideas were great and simple. he showed that the resistance of a ship co uld be calculated by (1) determining the resistance of a plank of wood of the appropriate scaled d imensions, (2) determining the frictional resistance of a model of the hull (3) subtracting (2) from (1), (4) determining the residuary resistance of the hull by multiplying (2) by the ratio of the weight of the model to that of the real thing and finally adding (3) and (4). By the stand ards of the day, it worked. It was now possible to make rational comparisons of one hull form with a nother. The tank at Chelston Cross was the first properly-instrumented testing tank in t he world. It was later moved to Haslar (in 1886) where it remained in service until 1938. Froude' s son Edward remained in charge of the operations for 40 years after his father's death. William Froude did a lot else; he showed the importance of interactions between hull form and propellers, designed much of the instrumentation, came up with the idea of the b ulbous bow and, ironically for the man who made tank testing with models work, showed that there were scaling factors between models and real ships that couldn't be explained (and still can' t). His work also showed that there were hydrodynamic factors in hulls that simply could not be ex plained away. It is fair to say that every ship in the world today owes its performance to Fro ude's insight and painstaking work. He steadfastly refused to accept any payment for his services. On other points, yes it is the same tank and models are frequently self-propelle d. it depends what we're doing the trials for. Towed models are better for resistance measurements; powered ones for sea-keeping trials (you have never lived until you've seen a tank-typhoon). I think the history of Froude covers Question 2 - the size of the model isn't so hot but the size of the tank is - as you point out, the last thing we want is interactions between t he sides and base of the tank with the model. Finally, the skeg trials are fascinating - they have different results for every series that were run. It seems that the operator has as much influence on the results as the design of the skegs themselves.

Kort Nozzles and Ducted Propellers By Stuart Slade Updated 27 January 1999 The idea of putting a shroud around a propeller is very old but it was only in 1 934 that Stipa and Kort showed that a practical propeller of this design was possible. Kort designe d a whole series of ducted propellers which proved very valuable when used in ships like tugs, pu shboats, supply ships, trawlers etc. For this reason, his designs became known as Kort Nozzles. His breakthrough was to shape the shroud around the propeller like an aerofoil r ather than a simple ring. If the high-pressure side of the aerofoil faces outwards (so the to p is like an aircraft wing right way up), the duct is of the decelerating type. If the low pressure si de is outwards (so the top is like an aircraft wing upside down) the duct is accelerating. An accel erating duct produces positive thrust and increases the efficiency of heavily-loaded props (a heavily-loaded prop is one where the power being put through it is close to the maximum absorba ble for that prop design). A decelerating duct produces a negative thrust and is valuable for reducing cavitation. A decelerating duct is a major contributor to noise reduction which is why it is getting more popular with modern warship designs. The major problem with ducted props is flow separation. This causes the drag of the whole system to increase sharply, efficiency drops and the propeller tries to work in a highly irregular flow. This is bad. A mass of work has been done on the standards for ducted prop ellers and a number of "optimum" units designed. These are referred to by numbers, the simple st member being Nozzle No.19A. Nozzle No.22 for example, has a longer shroud in proportion to the prop diameter and is more efficient but gives poor backing characteristics. If a comm ercial designer wants to use Kort Nozzles, he'll decide on the characteristics he wants then sel ects the appropriate nozzle. --In summary, ducted propellers are well suited for situations where the propeller has to accommodate heavy loads. However, such prop designs cannot work safely without f lanking rudders for the prop race since ducted props give virtually no backing control. In passing, flanking rudders are a pretty good idea since rudder control on ships doesn't us ually work below around 10 knots and under this speed ships have to steer using their engines. Wh ile no great problem with twin and quad screw configurations, this is impossible with single screw ships. In

this case, flanking rudders can offer some element of control at low speeds. In passing, German

S-boats used a rudder trick (called the Lurssen Effekt) to push their sterns dow n and thus get slightly better efficiency for their props. A pump jet is a developed Kort Nozzle in which the shroud is extended and fixed guidevanes are installed fore and aft of the propeller. The duct diameter increases from the en trance of the duct to the propeller so that the velocity of the water falls and the pressure increa ses. This means that the prop diameter is larger and the thrust loading drops. A lot of the design ar t in this area is classified and the only treatment available in open source comes from Henderson in 1963. . Designing a Ship By Stuart Slade Updated 04 July 1999 How does a warship really arrive in the world? This isn t a simple question; the p rocess is long, involved and full of uncertainties. Often, the ship that finally enters service proved to be very different from that which the originators of the project had in mind. Firstly, we start off with a staff requirement. This basically identifies a geopolitical situation, the resulting threats, the corresponding capabilities of the existing fleet and what capabilities are required to make the fleet meet the threat. They are driven by a thing called Thr eat Analysis an easy term that covers an incredibly difficult subject. Threat analysis looks at the level of a threat by evaluating two factors - the magnitude of the threat (how much damage is this threat likely to cause) and the severity of the threat (how likely is this threat to ha ppen). This style of analysis means that a threat that is potentially extremely damaging but has a ve ry low probability of actually happening may well be less significant than a less damaging threat t hat has a high probability of occurrence. The recent British Strategic Defense Review is a very good example of such a document - read carefully, it is using threat analysis to tell us what the next generation of British surface ships will look like. The staff requirement has many names bu t they all mean one thing - this is what the ship is going to have to face. They are not easy do cuments to put together. Now we have to translate that requirement into something approaching reality. We need some extra information here. So we go to the Treasury Department and find out how muc h money is likely to be available for the program. Having got that bit of information, we s tart to talk to the operators (the guys who drive the existing fleet around), the technical bureaus (who tell us what we have now and how well it works, what is being developed and how well advanced it is, what the Bad Guys have and how well advanced that is), analysts (who try to come up w ith realistic

threat scenarios) and consultants (people like yours truly who try to look at th ings from unconventional angles, identify good and bad ideas and suggest what works and wh at doesn't). Above all, we try to identify how many ships of the new type are actually going to be required. ---

This is critical because once we have the money available (from the Treasury) an d the number of ships required (from the assessment process), we know how much money we can affo rd to spend per ship. This acts as a design discipline that's absolutely crucial. Now we fac e CHOP-ONE. This is - do we really need this ship? What does it actually give us? What will we have to sacrifice to get it? Is there another way to get the same results at lower cost? Can we fulfill this requirement by modifying existing assets (a process called CILOP - Conversion In Lieu Of Procurement). Assuming the program passes CHOP-ONE, we can now begin to look at designing a sh ip. We now convert the staff requirement into a set of Design Requirements. In effect t his lays down a series of performance targets, driven by the selected roles the ship has to fulf ill. These can be quite startling. For example, if one of the duties the ship will have to assume is that of a carrier screen, she has to keep up with the carrier. Assuming a CVN will hold 30 knots a nd will bomb up every four days, that means her screen have to hold 30 knots for four days in other words will require enough fuel for 2,880 nautical miles at 30 knots. Add in a 20 perce nt safety reserve and we have (roughly) 3,400 nm at 30 knots. This equates to (equally roughly) 5, 000 nm at 20 knots or 8,000 nm at 17 knots. Already we are looking at a big ship to carry tha t amount of fuel. We are also looking at a very fast ship - to run with a carrier doing 30 knots, we need a 20 percent design speed excess - in other words a designed speed of 36 knots (to gi ve a trials speed of 32 -33 knots). The Design requirements will also begin to determine what sort of weapons and se nsor capability will be required. This is where most of the money gets spent so decisions here a re crucial. Always, that design cost is hovering in the background - giving a ship designed primarily for ASW an Aegis system may well sound a Good Idea but add so much to the cost that the ship can't be built in the numbers needed. And so it goes. Now we need another set of outside data. This is the most critically important d ocument we it s called the "Instructions To Designers." This carries a whole mass of inf have ormation on what is and is not acceptable in ship design. It includes things like desired st ability criteria, design features - even down to how many members of crew per head. It'll tell us what dockyards the ship will be expected to use - this gives us a draft limitation that will be come critical. The ItD will also give us some new criteria - so we want to keep the crew size down? How about low radar cross section? What are the anti-pollution requirements? So, at last, we have the Design Specifications. These will give us speed, range,

sea-keeping ability, threat orientation, crew size and other bits of data. In effect, we can design a ship from this basis (in fact the people involved in getting this far usually consider get ting to this point "designing a ship" and consider everything that follows merely irritating detail s). Note that we haven't even begun to specify the actual weapons fit, layout or anything else ye t. So, the project is up and running, the Government has approved, the Treasury has not disapproved and the decision has been taken. We'll build a new class of battlesh ips. For the sake of argument we'll assume that Washington Treaty limitations of 35,000 tons apply. The first step is to appoint a Chief Designer who will have full authority over the program. Everybody sits around, not daring to move until somebody remembers that "Old Geo rge" is

away on vacation and won't be back for ten days. "Old George" is promptly appoin ted Chief Designer and the paperwork rushed through before he gets back and can change it. Next step in the procedure is to start some feasibility designs. There is a rule of thumb that around 60 percent of a battleship's displacement is allocated to weapons, armor and propulsion. That gives us roughly 21,000 tons to play with. So we go to the ordnance people and ask what guns they have under development. They tell us they have an updated version of t he old 12-inch that looks good, a modernized version of the 14 inch and a new 16 inch gun with all the mistakes made with the previous design fixed. So the design staff do a series of outlines using each gun. The centerpiece of e ach series is a "balanced" design, that is the ship's protection is adequate to resist her own g uns and the speed is whatever it is. The 12 inch series immediately hits the problem that 35,000 tons is far too large. A balanced 12-inch design will still be a weak ship; if the extra weight is used for protection, she'll be able to resist 18-inch gunfire, which is absurd for a 12 inch gunned s hip or if its put into power she'll be very fast. Somebody comes up with a design that uses the extra s ize for a large number of guns rather than caliber. This leads to a ship with 20 12-inch guns in 5 quadruple turrets, 32 knots and armored against 6-inch gunfire. Nobody plans to actually b uild this design but the question is, what would somebody else use such a ship for and do we have to worry about similar designs? When its shown to a fleet Captain he mumbles a few things and s trides off. 30 years later, when writing his memoirs he claims that he had single-handedly save d the Empire by preventing the ship from being built. Two days later he's found stabbed to death with a sliderule. In reality, the 12-inch series is out; a realistic design is implausible unless the Treaty limitation is cut to 25,000 tons. The 14-inch designs look more promising. A balanced design s eems possible using a 28 knot speed rating. The 16-inch series is also plausible but a balanced design will only be possible if a 23 knot ship is accepted. These two alternatives are taken as the basis for the formal requirement. Now, our preliminary proposals are fed back to the a uthorities, with the message, yes we can do it, and this is what the new ship will be like. The a uthorities get the go-ahead, the design staff gets ready and the Chief Designer's wife starts quiet ly preparing for a divorce. Now we are starting serious design work. The first step is to get the Ship's Cov er from the previous design and see what was done and how. By now, if we're lucky, the Cover will contain comments from the Captain and the refit yards on what went wrong with the design

and how it can be fixed. If we're really lucky, there will be a couple of letters from the Chief's Mess, to the Admiralty telling them what they think of the design. Such input gets treated wi th a lot of respect; even though the suggestions may be impractical, they point to problems and/or suggestions for the day to day running of the ship that couldn't come from anywh ere else. With all that background we can start real design. Firstly, take the previous de sign and ask, can we get what we want by simply changing the guns? What impact would it have if we upped the speed to the new spec? Can we use the old design at all? How do we start? If we are going to build a battleship today, we would have to start from first principles - modern practices are so different from those of the WW2 era that we simply can t do now what we did then.

The powers that be come back with a comment that they smile upon faster designs. So the designs take a series of options on 14-inch armament. They may take 8 guns in fo ur twins, nine guns in three triples, ten guns in two triples and two twins and twelve guns in four triples. Then, they take various levels of protection. If this is set in the 1930s, they are pr obably using immune zone theory to determine how the protection is laid out (today we would do thing s rather differently). Now we put together a whole series of alternate designs which fulf ill the Design Requirements in different ways. These are the preliminary sketches that start to appear in the press and in trade shows. Each suggested layout shows what certain assumptions w ill do to the final product. Many of these layouts are really intended to show why we can't do certain things. Others, to show the catastrophic cost implications. This is a very iterative pro cess. Ideas are put in, evaluated, discarded or formalized over and over again. Weapons are added, e valuated then subtracted. At every point, the cost of the product is assessed and compared wit h the targets. Eventually, they come to a range of designs including fast 8-gun ships protected against 14-inch guns up to slow 12 gun ships protected against 16-inch shells. As part of this p rocess, the outer dimensions of the hull are being estimated and a very crude estimate of the hors epower requirement of the ship made. The Engineering people are then asked what powerpl ants they are developing. They may have 15,000 SHP, 20,000 SHP, 30,000 SHP and 45,000 SHP plan t available. This sets the minimum power configuration at 30,000 SHP (twin shaft) and the maximum at 180,000 SHP (quadruple shafts). This means the machinery weight for e ach option can be calculated. A series of trade-offs will be made for varying combinations - for example, 60,000 SHP could be reached by using either four 15,000 units or two 30,000 unit s. That decision will bounce backwards and forwards as the internal arrangements of the ship are discussed. The 16-inch variants are held on a back burner at this time; implicitly they mea n a slow ship so they'll only become interesting if the slow options become acceptable. This does n't happen, slowly the idea of a medium-speed 12 gun ship protected against 14 inch gunfire gets to be the front-runner. At this point, the intelligence people toss a bombshell - there is a strong chance that the threat will go for 16-inch guns. The authorities demand protection agai nst 16-inch gunfire. This throws everything into a loop and the Chief Designer is forcibly r estrained from hurling himself out of the window. The design team now has a well-advanced design and an urgent need to work in ext

ra protection without unbalancing the ship. Frantic work is undertaken in an attempt to juggle the extra protection needed into a ship with four triple turrets. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a great light bursts: The Quadruple Turret! If we can use quads to pack 12 guns in to the space previously needed by three triples, we have a chance. Now, back in the earlier s tages, we had a ship that sacrificed some gunpower for protection from 16-inch projectiles and a little extra speed. Quite a few people liked it, but the 12 gun designs got the nod. So, they go back to that discarded fast 9 gun design and replace the triple turrets with quadruples. We t ake the chosen powerplant from the previous 12 gun design, add it into the new variant and take a deep breath. Wonders! It WORKS. It s actually QUITE GOOD. The design is now converted to a Spri ng Style (so called after the sketches used for Ladies Fashions) which shows people what the ship will actually look like. This is a worked out design; she'll trim right and the maths works.

Proudly, the design team shows their labors to a meeting of the Admiralty and re presentatives of the fleet. And wait for the applause. It isn't long in coming. Tributes to their expertise descend from all quarters " Call that a ship?", "My God what do we pay people like you for?", "My three year old daughter could do better than that", "Your daughter - my dog could do better - and does, on the carpet ev ery morning." "Are these people mad?" At this point, the Chief Designer's head starts to rotat e around on his shoulders, green steam comes out of his ears and, possessed by the spirit of Jac kie Fisher he starts screaming "Speed is Armor; Speed is Armor." Sadly, his deputy carries him away to a darkened room far from the sea. The meeting now proceeds to serious design input. Gunnery asks if the quad turre ts are really necessary; the reason is explained and he sighs. Gunnery really doesn t like quad turrets. His department also questions the AA armament; they have grave reservations about th e guns selected for the secondary battery; they would like fewer, heavier weapons. It s e xplained the guns have to be DP or they ll need two different guns and weight economy won t take it. The point is taken. Engineering queries the propulsion choices; they can offer a sli ghtly more powerful turbine in the same weight and volume - would the designers like some m ore power? They could have another 10,000 SHP if they really need it. The design team accep ts gratefully. Aviation demands the entire ship be decked over and converted to a carrier; they are taken into the car park and beaten into insensibility. When they recover, they ask for a se cond aircraft and a cross deck catapult; this is included. Seaman s division doesn't like the tripod mast aft of the forefunnel, it s likely to suffer from smoke interference. That s noted and the mast reversed. This has an impact on bridge layout but nothing that can t be handled. Signals sta te they have to have a clear masthead position; they can't say why but it s very important. All th is input is fed into the design and modifications made as needed. Eventually, when all the depar tments have reviewed the design, it s approved. This means the ship now faces CHOP-TWO. Can th e design requirements be met with the funds available? If not, we have various choices (a ) reduce the number of ships and increase the cost-per, (b) get more money, (c) reduce the de sign requirements or (d) find another way of doing things. Let s assume the program survives CHOP-TWO. NOW we can start to design the ship. B y this time the Chief Designer has recovered from his breakdown and is back in his offi ce (he thinks he is a potato and that the Admiralty wants to bake him, but that s another matter). The Spring

Style is taken and split up into a series of vertical slices. The designers then calculate the weight of each slice. They can also make another calculation - they know the length of the slice, its draft so the only unknown is the beam at that slice. They can then calculate the beam for the slice that will result in the below-water portion displacing enough water to sup port the slice at the desired waterline. They do this for each slice. This usually gives a shape l ike a demented dog-bone. So they shift things around until they have a series of beams for the slices that give a relatively hull-like appearance. This then goes to hydrodynamics who provide a set of hull lines that encompass t hose calculated beams. Applying this to the hull slices gives a new series of figures. Each slic e will weigh a calculated amount; it will displace a calculated amount. This gives each slice a calculated waterline. All the hull slices together will give the hull waterline. The slices will have positive

or negative buoyancy relative to that line which will give a series of stress ve ctors. Now the designers shift things around to reduce those vectors as far as possible. Then t hey do this over and over again; the slices get smaller and smaller as the stresses in the hull a re recalculated with each design change. By the end of the process, the hull has been split up into t ens of thousands of elements, each of which has its stress moments calculated individually. That' s why making apparently minor design changes late in the design process can be a disaster. Meanwhile, the junior designers do everything from designing bulkheads and bunk spaces to working out where the bilge pumps will be. The role of the Senior Designers here is to supervise the work and ensure that no idiotic mistakes are made. The Chief Designer superv ises the Senior Designers. In passing, one bad problem that the RN had in the 1930s was inadequa te numbers of Senior Designers. This meant that work wasn't properly supervised and bad mistak es were made. The Dido class cruisers were regarded as a particularly bad case of this e ffect. There were many features of their design which would not have been allowed had proper supervision been possible. The final details of weapons, etc., selection takes place during this process and is largely driven by it. What is the effect of changing the bulkhead spacing? What sheer is required to the bows (is any sheer a good idea? It may be that the bow has margi nal positive buoyancy and adding extra steel for sheer and flare may eliminate that buoyancy, doing more harm to seakeeping than good). Detail design can easily take a couple of years. Eventually, the design blueprin ts are completed, signed off, and the ship put out to tender. Usually, at least one shipyard will come back with their own "improved design" that shows what a modern, forward thinking yard can achieve as compared with the hidebound reactionaries in their Admiralty ivory towers. These designs are invariably completely unrealistic and far inferior to the official product. Howe ver, they do have merit in that they are printed on nice, smooth, soft paper. The shipyards then have the design job of taking the ship blueprints and convert ing them into a real hull. Each individual hull component is drawn out, full scale, in a place c alled a Molding Loft Templates are made from these drawings and used to fabricate each hull membe r. Trusted shipyards will have quite a lot of latitude here; others will be very tightly wa tched. But, eventually, the ship gets built. Usually there are some design changes on the wa y and this adds to the fun. If the designers are really unlucky, somebody turns up with a new, w orld-beating idea that s only been proved to be a failure about 500 times before and they have to co nvince people

of its ultimate idiocy. At the end comes the great day when the new battleship enters the fleet. The com missioning ceremony is held, the crew bring the ship to life and commentators pass their ju dgment on the new class "a sad day for the Empire," "Anyone can see how useless she is," "What were they thinking of?" "One look at a picture in Jane s and I can that tell the German Ship s are far better." "Why don't we fire these idiots and give the jobs to the shipyards?" "If they ca n design 200 ton corvettes armed with 18 inch guns for the export market, why can't we have them? " The Chief Designer ambles away sadly, keeping a sharp lookout for Admiralty offi cers with potato-baking forks and decides he needs another holiday. That s when the next pro ject gets launched......

Fuel Consumption and Efficiency of Prime Movers in 1920 by Greg Locock Updated 26 April 2001 Most of this data comes from "Ship Form, Resistance and Screw Propulsion" by GS Baker, published in 1920. The source of any other figure is identified in the text. Man y of the examples Baker uses are for passenger and cargo ships- he mentions few warships by name. Note that this article primarily discusses the state of the art in 1920, with a bit of hindsigh t. Fuel Consumption - Typical Values Baker gives these figures as average consumptions, as installed, although it is unclear whether these Shaft Horsepower (SHP) figures are given before or after all the ancillary drives. I suspect the latter. The unfeasibly high-speed turbines were land based installations, bu t he was obviously aware that naval turbines still had a way to go in efficiency. I've included a m odern truck diesel in the table to show where they were heading. It looks as though the diesel engi nes are far more efficient than the steam units, but part of that difference is due to the higher calorific value of oil, which is discussed more fully later on. --Engine type lbs/hr/SHP Fuel type Triple expansion steam engine 1.54 coal (type unspecified) Quad expansion steam engine 1.34 coal (type unspecified) Turbine at low speeds 2.4 coal (type unspecified)

Turbine at high speeds 1.2 coal (type unspecified) Turbine at unfeasibly high revs 1.0 coal (type unspecified) Diesel 4 stroke 0.44 oil (type unspecified) Diesel 2 stroke 0.47 lamp oil modern turbo diesel at optimum efficiency 0.35 diesel

The turbines will usually need a speed reducing system of some sort if the losse s in the prop itself are to be reduced to the same level as a reciprocating engine's. The two common alternatives were either an electrical 'transformer' (Baker's phrase -presumably a generator-motor set 88% efficient) or a gearbox (98% efficient). I'd add that once you have a sp eed reducer of whatever form you could end up with a better prop than the direct drive reciproc ating engine. He later comments that the pulseless drive from a turbine tends to delay cavitation . These two factors might allow you to design a more radical, and so more efficient, prop fo r a given ship's speed, but he makes no mention of this. On these numbers a turbine at high speed will always be more economical than a t riple expansion reciprocating steam engine, whichever transmission system is used. At low speeds (typically less than 14 knots) then the reciprocating engine is better. I haven' t found a quad expansion engine in naval use, but they would have been roughly as efficient as a triple at low

speed, or slightly better, and as economical as a turbine with an electrical tra nsformer at high speed. A turbine with a reducing gear would still have been about 10% better. Another installation uses triple expansion engines on the outer shafts, with the ir exhaust steam going to a direct drive low-pressure turbine on the center shaft, and notes that the engine room was very long. He claims a 12% reduction in fuel consumption over a sister ship with just two shafts and two quad expansion steam engines, which is equivalent to 1.18 lbs coa l per SHP hour - pretty impressive. Mechanical Efficiency of Engines In a separate discussion Baker gives the following values for SHP/IHP. This is t he power in the shaft as a proportion of the measured gas cycle in the working chamber. Turbines don't have an IHP as such (in this book), and I can't find representative numbers in my other books. Triple expansion at low power 0.80 Triple expansion at full power 0.88

Quad at full power 0.92 4 stroke Diesel 0.85 2 stroke Diesel 0.71

This drop in efficiency is due to friction, auxiliary plant, windage and some of the residual energy in the exhaust. On average quad engines were larger than triples, so the higher mechanical efficiency of the quad is probably because the parasitic auxiliaries tend to be a smaller percentage of the SHP. Calorific Value of Fuels Charles Braun found me the details of the coal, the kerosene figure comes from R ogers and Mayhew's "Engineering Thermodynamics, Work and Heat Transfer", which is almost a s exciting as it sounds. Kerosene (diesel) 44 MJ/kg 7.3 hp hours per lb 0.136 lb per hp hour Welsh Admiralty coal 35 MJ/kg 5.8 hp hours per lb 0.172 lb per hp hour

Approximate Relative Efficiency of Engines Adding in the relative performance of each fuel gives an approximation to the ov erall efficiency of each engine, and steam plant, if applicable. I don't know that the coal used in the first table was necessarily Welsh Admiralty, so the following analysis is necessarily flaky. According to Mark's Engineering Handbook, the very best American coal is 33 MJ/kg, and the wo rst (other than lignite) is 20 MJ/kg, so Welsh Admiralty coal is very good indeed. A better calorific value worsens the efficiency I've calculated below. This is the proportion of the ener

gy 'in' the fuel (it's more complicated than that, but the complexities don't make much difference) tha t actually gets into the crankshaft. Note that a proper analysis of this is much more complex, s o these figures are approximate. Triple expansion steam engine 11% Quad expansion steam engine 13% Turbine at low speeds 7% Turbine at high speeds 14% Turbine at unfeasibly high revs 17% Diesel 4 stroke 31%

Diesel 2 stroke 29% Modern turbo-Diesel 39%

The efficiencies of the steam plants are a little low compared with my expectati ons. Diesels, which at the time were limited to 2000 hp or so (as Baker says- at least 6000 hp was available by 1930), were obviously the first choice for efficiency. It is also obvious that d eveloping reduction gears to handle the high speeds and high powers of efficient turbines should hav e been a priority. These numbers allow us to compare each installation independent of the fuel type , which, since they can all run on oil, is quite handy and separate from the coal vs. oil decis ion. I would expect all the coal fired numbers (all the steam engines) to improve slightly when run on oil, as it must be easier to design an efficient oil fired boiler than a coal fired one. Inciden tally one of the reasons why the steam plants show a disappointingly low efficiency is that a boi ler is around 88% efficient (source unknown), and the more of these efficiencies you string to gether in series, the less efficient the overall system is. These efficiencies bear little resembl ance to the mechanical efficiencies in the previous section, since they include the thermody namic efficiency of the steam cycle in the powerplant, and the boiler efficiency. He also gives some more examples showing the relative performance of sister ship s using different powerplants. Some of these were unsuccessful turbine installations. He re's the most detailed chart, showing nautical miles per ton of coal for two sister ships. Speed Direct drive Turbine Reciprocating steam engine (probably triple expansion) knots miles/ton miles/ton 10 7.4 9.7

14 6.6 6.8 18 4.8 3.7 20 4.2 2.9

So, in this comparison the turbine was better at all speeds in excess of 14 knot s, which bears out the argument above. I have not included other data, for ships where a direct dri ve turbine was less economical than a reciprocating engine. This certainly happened, as a direc t drive turbine is relatively cheap, but getting the prop right can be somewhere between fairly dif ficult and impossible. An example of this is given later on. He only has one comparison of plant weight, for two 520' 19000 ton sister ships: Turbine/generator/motor 156 tons 14.8 knots 6300 SHP Two triple expansion steam engines 280 tons 14.6 knots 6700 IHP

It would be interesting to know the comparative installation size and weight of a diesel unit obviously getting rid of the boilers and condensers would be a huge advantage. Thrust Bearing Efficiencies Once the power has been transmitted to the propeller shaft, after any reduction gearing, it still has to be transformed into useful work to push the boat along. To do this it nee ds to push against the boat, so it needs a thrust bearing. Rather worryingly Baker mentions casuall y that 'just' 2-4% is lost in the thrust bearing, but that a better pivoted block design drops this to 0.3% I am amazed that anyone would casually throw 1.7-3.7% away. Propeller Design The best efficiency that Baker shows for a three-blade prop is 0.75, and this wo uld be for a very large slow revving prop in a small fast ship. To get an efficiency as high as th is typically needs shaft speeds less than 60 rpm, which is possible, and screw diameters in excess of 28 feet, which is not practical for ships using normal harbors. He includes a worked example for a twin-shafted ship with 16000 HP at the propel lers. The operating speed is assumed to be 20.6 knots. Coincidentally this is roughly the power per prop and speed of the first generation Dreadnoughts. The optimum prop for a given sha ft speed is as shown in the following table. He starts with a 0.5 Disc Area Ratio (DAR) (that i s, the blades cover half the disc), which cavitates at 200 rpm. To suppress this he switches t o a 0.8 DAR design, which is less efficient, but exerts a lower pressure on the water, and s o tends to cavitate less. Propshaft (RPM) Diameter (ft) Pitch (ft) Efficiency (%) 100 20.6 24.7 72 120 20.6 22.7

70 140 18.0 18.0 69 160 16.5 16.5 68 180 16.0 14.4 66

0.8 DAR

180 15 15 62 200 14.1 14.1 59 220

13.4 13.4 58 240 12.8 12.8 56 260 12.0 10.8 55

Increasing the DAR lost about 4% and the efficiency drops by 3% for each 20% inc rease in speed. Not very surprisingly, the slower the prop, the bigger it is, and the lon ger the pitch. As this example reinforces, it is important to fit a large slow moving prop, if tha t is practical. The methodology used to select propellers, in this book, is much less clear to m e than the method proposed by Taylor based on the dimensionless groups Bp and delta. All the data is available in both methods, but Taylor's charts make selecting an optimal prop much easier. Propulsive Efficiencies The final section in Baker's book is a table showing the propulsive efficiency, EHP/IHP, of the transmission and propeller system for many different vessels fitted with recipro cating engines. This lumps together every source of inefficiency I have discussed above, for eac h ship. We can see from the figures in each section above that we can expect to see a maximum f igure of perhaps 0.88 (mechanical, for a triple) *0.98 (thrust bearing)* 0.72 (propeller) . This works out at 62%. Worst case using the above figures would be 0.88*0.96*0.55=46%. In practice he has one straggler at 33%, which actually had too large a prop fitted, reducing it by a c ouple of feet in both pitch and diameter gave it 2 more knots, and boosted the efficiency to a re spectable 50%. The others range over 43% to 59%. That agrees suspiciously well with my estimate 46% to 62%. The best we could hope for is rather better than that, with a quad we could see 66%. It is much more difficult to analyze the turbine, since the speed matching is so crucial to its efficiency. At best a direct drive turbine of precisely the right speed and power might hit the full 70%, although that is a proportion of SHP, not IHP. A geared turbine, in a large hull (making room for a large prop), might even achieve 73% efficiency. He also gives an example of two sister ships, one fitted with two quad engines, running at 80 rpm, the other with three direct drive turbines at 175 rpm. This speed is very s low for such small turbines (1000-2500 rpm is much more typical), so we can expect a relatively hig h fuel consumption. If we assume that both ships were designed to be as efficient as po ssible then we can compare the relative efficiencies. From the table above we'd expect to lose around 10% prop efficiency as a direct result of speeding up the propeller from 80 rpm to 175 rp m. So the designer's other option would have been to fit a transformer, or a gearbox. This would have regained 2-8% of the difference. A crafty designer would have increased the spee d of the turbines yet further, and geared them down even more, or fitted one larger turbi ne and geared it across two or three shafts. This would reduce his basic fuel consumption, and in crease the prop

efficiency. Not very surprisingly, in this case, as built, the direct drive turb ine ship used more coal than the quad expansion ship. Power Capacity of Primemovers and Transmission Elements in 1920 In 1920 the following sizes were the approximate practical power limits for each individual unit. The steam engine figures are from Jane's for ships built 1912-1916. These are no t definitive, just the best figures I could find.

Triple reciprocating 7000+ SHP (USS New York) Quad reciprocating Not used in large naval ships Diesel 2000 SHP Turbine 28000+ SHP (HMS Repulse) Reduction gear 15000 input 25000 output reductions up to 28:1 or 55:1 if two are ganged Electric reduction 22000+ SHP reductions of at least 18:1 are possible

Although it is possible to use more than one engine or turbine per propeller sha ft, this necessitates using a gear or electric drive, i.e., you cannot simply string a se ries of engines up and connect them end to end. It was common to put more than one engine onto a re ducing gear, hence the different input/output limits on the reduction gear. From this table i t is obvious that turbines offered significantly simpler installations for large fast ships. Conclusions By 1920 hydronamicists, engineers and physicists had gathered enough data to ana lyze and discuss the shapes of hulls, and propellers, quite well. Reciprocating steam pla nt had already been analyzed to death in the previous century. The steam turbine, particularly when geared down, was proving to be a more economical engine than the reciprocating engines, and in some installations the direct drive turbines were also efficient. By 1920 the design of three and four blade propellers in their own right was well understood. The difficulties came w hen trying to match them to hulls, and powerplants, in an efficient manner. The hull and the p ropeller interact in an extremely complex fashion - which even today can cause problems. In 1920 it was obvious that to be efficient turbines had to be run at much highe r speeds than the propellers could handle, for most ships. According to the figures given, gearing turbines looked like a better solution than using an electrical transformer, due primarily to th e gearbox's higher efficiency, higher power-handling, and greater reduction ratio. Nonetheless the

combination of a high-speed turbine and a transformer would still give better fuel consumption th an a triple expansion engine, at high speeds. The high efficiency of diesel engines had also been recognized, although their s mall size at that time militated against their use in large fast ships. The high powers available from a single turbine must have simplified the layout of these ships considerably. Typical measured values of propulsive efficiency, from steam pressure at the pis ton's surface to overcoming resistance of the hull, of 43-59% have been shown to be in line with the product of the known efficiencies of each component in the system. . ---

Designing a Propeller By Stuart Slade Updated 04 July 1999 Propellers are usually described as pushing against water in order to propel a s hip forward. In fact, this isn t quite the case. What a propeller does is apply an acceleration to a mass of water. According to Newton s Law of Action and Reaction, the action of increasing the vel ocity of a mass of water in a given direction generates an equal and opposite reaction in t he propeller/shaft assembly. This is described as the thrust of the propeller and it is this thrust that drives the ship forward. The basic theory of how a propeller works was put together by three eminent Vict orians, Rankine, Greenhill and RE Froude (son of our old friend William Froude) between 1865 and 1889. They envisaged an idealized propeller called a Rankine Disk Actuator which imparts a sudden uniform acceleration to all the fluid passing through it, the flow being frictionless and the water being present in unlimited quantities and the Rankine Disk working with 10 0 percent efficiency. In this idealized system, the energy imparted to the water by the Ra nkine Disk Actuator is E = 0.5 x M x (V1-V0)(p2) Where E is the energy required for the acceleration, M is the mass of water acce lerated, V1 is the final velocity of the water and V0 is the initial velocity of the water. Due to the limitations of the text system here I can t use superscripts so (p2) indicates squares, (p3) indicate d cubes etc., etc. This is, of course, a slightly modified standard kinetic energy equation. Unfort unately, that s the last easy bit of mathematics. Because adding any energy into the system changes the values of both V1 and V0, the equation has to be integrated between zero and t seconds whe re t is the time taken for the system to come to equilibrium. --Now, (V1-V0), the increase in velocity of the water, is determined by the design of the screw. Each turn of the screw accelerates a package of water from V0 to V1. Increasing the rate of revolution increases the number of those packages that goes through the Rankine Disk but does

not increase the speed at which they leave the disk. This is important; it doesn t matter how fast the screw turns or how large it is, it the design of the screw and that design o nly that determines the acceleration of the water. A good comparison is a road with a 55 mph speed l imit improving the quality of the road or widening it to include more lanes will incr ease the volume of traffic the road can handle but the speed of the traffic will only be increas ed by raising the speed limit. M, the mass of the water passing through the Rankine Disk Actuator, is equivalen t to the density of water times the volume of water passed. Increasing the volume (and thus the m ass) of the disk can be achieved by using a larger disk and/or increasing the revolutions pe r minute of the propeller. In mathematical terms, the water passing through the Rankine Disk is a cylinder, the diameter of which is the diameter of the disk and the length of which (the numbe r of packages transiting the disk) is determined by the speed at which the disk is turning. Fr om an energy point of view, it doesn t matter very much whether the cylinder is long and thin (a smal l prop running at high speed) or short and fat (a large prop running at slow speed). As long as the two cylinders contain the same volume of water being accelerated the same amount, they ll demand the same amount of energy and yield the same level of thrust. (Remember these cylinders a re mathematical constructs not physical reality). This treatment gives us one very important lesson which takes some complex mathe matics to prove because it seems so outrageous. Since we are accelerating a cylinder of wa ter through a disk, fully half the thrust developed by the acceleration of that cylinder is de livered before the water ever touches the disk! In short, we seem to get the thrust before the wate r gets the acceleration. This is outrageous, ridiculous, unbelievable and perfectly correct - it is a major consideration in designing underwater hull forms. Unfortunately, when we leave the idealized world of the Rankine Disk Actuator an d enter the real world, life starts to get complex. Firstly, the cylinder isn t a cylinder. Be fore the water hits the propeller it is being drawn along at speed above that of water outside the c ylinder. Bernoulli s law dictates that water will be drawn into the cylinder from outside, causing the cylinder to bulge outwards. The other side of the prop, the fact that accelerati on is constant by the volume of water being pushed through is increased as the revolving speed of the prop goes up causes increased pressure areas aft of the prop. This causes a high-pressure bulge here too. (A simple experiment illustrates this - take a garden hose and set it running fu ll blast. Now put

your thumb over the nozzle). Eventually, this high-pressure region reaches the p roportions where it breaks the surface, giving the famous rooster-tail effect. (It can also have a forward vector that has a propulsive effect on the ship). These two factors mean that th e propeller isn t at the center of a cylinder but a complex shape rather like an hourglass with the p ropeller at the thin neck. Again, the equations have to be integrated in order to get the volume (i.e. the energy content) of the system. If we were following the maths in detail, we would now b e dealing with several layers of integrated equations. Another problem is induced rotation. In the Rankine Disk Actuator, no axial rota tion is applied to the water flow. At low transiting volumes, this is almost true, but as volume s get larger and the ratio of prop diameter to speed of rotation reaches critical values, the wat er leaving the propeller (the race) becomes more and more spiral in shape. This is purely awful - every drop of

energy that goes into rotating the water instead of accelerating it is wasted (i n effect it shortens our mathematical-construct cylinder). In mathematical terms the pitch of the spi ral shortens as speed of prop rotation increases and the loss of energy is proportional to the s quare of that pitch. Increasing prop size and speed of rotation are both good in that they increase t he volume of water the prop accelerates. However, there are limits on both. Propeller size ha s physical limitations (we really do not want the blade tips hitting the hull plating), mat erial restrictions (having the prop fly apart from metal fatigue is usually quite depressing) and a lso hydrodynamic restrictions which we ll come to later. If speed of rotation is pushed too high, t he propeller starts to hit the axial rotation problem described above and also starts to cavitate. T his is by way of being an upper limit - reductions in propeller efficiency from cavitation quickl y get so high that adding extra power will actually slow the ship down. The inefficiency of a small, fast running propeller is murderous. For example, i f the efficiency of a prop was really that of a Rankine Disk Actuator, halving the diameter of a propeller could be compensated by increasing the speed of the propeller by a factor of four - the e nergy contents would be the same. In reality, the efficiency of the half-diameter quadruple-spe ed propeller would be only 61.8 percent of the full-size, slow speed version - it would provi de less that 2/3 the thrust. So, mathematically, the Rankine Disk Actuator equations eventually s how us that a large, slow-turning propeller is a better deal than a small, fast-turning one. A s an insight into a science nobody had thought of a few years earlier, the Rankine Disk momentum the ory isn t bad for a group of Victorian gentlemen who had virtually nothing to work with except slide-rules and their own perceptive brilliance. In effect we have a cycle by which the engines generate power, that power is use d by the screws to accelerate water, the reaction to which is thrust which pushes the ship forwa rd. Unfortunately, the limitations on prop size and speed of rotation plus the fact that the accele ration applied to the water by the props is fixed by the design of the props, means there is a limit t o the energy the props can use (in mathematics, to the size of our hour-glass or cylinder dependi ng on whether we are looking at reality or theory). Any extra power generated by the engines abov e that limit is so much deadweight. In reality, of course, this limit isn t a sharp point but an area in which the efficiency by which the screws convert energy into thrust quickly drops to zero. Nonetheless, adding 500 tons of machinery to a ship that is already overpowered will not achi eve anything at all.

We can t do much about the density of water (well actually we can. The effects of pressure from depth are quite important - a propeller running at 45 feet will give measurably more thrust than the same prop at 15 feet due to water pressure. Also, the compressive effect of a heavy hull will have a beneficial effect on the effective mass of water going through the prop. These are, however, relatively minor effects in terms of the sort of gains we are looking f or). If we are going to get a major gain in energy utilization out of the power train we have t o improve the amount by which the propeller accelerates the water and design the prop so that cavitation is delayed as long as possible. Unfortunately, here the Rankine Disk ceases to be o f help since the mechanism by which it accelerates the water is not considered. There are two the ories that do deal with this, the Blade Element Theory (which evolved shortly after the pionee ring work of Rankine, Greenhill and Froude) and the Circulation Theory (evolved by F.W. Lanch ester for

aircraft in 1907 and applied to ships by Betz and Prandtl some years later). Bot h involve mathematics of extreme complexity. The Circulation Theory in particular allows t he acceleration applied to water by a blade of given shape to be calculated by a th ing called the Kutta-Joukowski Equation. The fun question is, what is the ideal shape? What makes this question difficult is the fact that the propeller works in the s hip s wake. What is normally called a wake isn t; its a combination of the ship s real wake and the r ace from the screws. Differentiating between the two is easy - the race travels backwards rel ative to the ship, the wake travels in the same direction as the ship but at a lower speed. The wak e results from (a) the frictional drag of the hull which produces a following current, maximizing a round the stern (b) the streamline flow past the hull causing increased pressure where the hull lines close also creating a following current and the wave pattern formed by the ship on the surf ace in which the water packages have an orbital motion, the top being in the same direction a s the movement of the ship and the bottom being in the opposite direction. The forward speed of the wake in proportion to that of the ship is called the Wake Fraction. This will significan tly reduce the (V1V0) value (by half for a wake fraction of 50 percent) with obvious effects on th rust. The three factors that create the wake give a hydrodynamic picture of unsurpassed complexi ty. Newton and Hadler did a whole series of studies back in 1960 on the performance of prop ellers using Fourier Analysis to create mathematical constructs of wakes using the computers then available. They produced a series of flow diagrams of single and twin-screw ships sections aft and of the props working in those flow conditions. These clearly showed that the twin-screw environment was much less chaotic than the single-screw situation. In a single centerline sc rew, the relative intensity of the wake/prop interaction (which should be constant for maximum eff iciency) varied from 0.10 at the tip to 0.67 at the root of the blade. In a twin-screw, the same figures were 0.02 at the tip to 0.04 at the root. The study also showed that the effect on the wak e form from a centerline screw was enough to badly disrupt the more favorable environment surr ounding the wing screws. These experiments at last provided a reasonable explanation of why twin screws work better than single centerline props and lead to a concerted effort to relat e hull design to wake characteristics. In 1965, Van Manen produced a series of conclusions based on his extrapolation o f Newton and Hadler s work. These were that the wake pattern is largely a product of the aft bo dy of the ship, that harmonic amplitudes (transverse vibration) are inherently more severe on sh

ips with centerline screws, the finer the stern, the more efficient the props, that blade geometry has a significant effect on induced shaft vibration, that transom sterns are less pron e to cavitation, that the rudder has little effect on the wake and that minor changes in speed, displa cement, hull form and trim have major and completely unpredictable effects on the wake pattern and , therefore, screw performance. In 1972, Van Oossanen et al investigated these areas but fail ed to come up with meaningful answers as did Holden in 1980 (although he did have some success in predicting effects on wakes with low peak values). This whole area is still larg ely a mystery although Chaos Theory may provide some clues as to what is happening back there. So, having gotten the theory out more power into thrust and, thus, to make bigger shing the limits of practical, it s quite simple. esign, take the desired speed of revolution from ures into a preof the way, how do we design a prop to convert battleships possible? If the ship design isn t pu We take the desired prop diameter from the hull d the machinery design people and put the two fig

calculated graphical projection that will give us the optimum prop design for thos e conditions. This optimum isn t really that, its the best commercial approximation that can be mass produced for those conditions. If we want anything better, its has to be custom-designed for that specific ship. This involves massive tank-testing of hull forms to determine the wake character istics at a wide variety of ship speeds and then the incorporation of those figures into a comput er model to determine how a propeller will behave in those conditions. The geometry of each blade can then be designed (and redesigned and redesigned and ... you get the message) to try a nd reduce wake/prop interaction and to equalize that effect across the blade. This involve s, slow, patient changes to leading and trailing edge configuration and blade cross section at va rying points along the length of the blade (i.e. from root to tip). Blade area should be maximized to eliminate cavitation and the number of blades selected to give optimum results (usually th at means as many as possible consistent with keeping flow conditions smooth). Typical select ions these days are four, five and seven bladed props with nine-bladed units beginning to make a n appearance. For some unfathomable reason, six-bladed props are more prone to exhibiting unfa vorable characteristics than other configurations so are usually avoided (this is not an absolute). These days, much of this work can be done by computer simulation with the results conf irmed by tank testing. Today s customized propellers have extremely complex blade shapes, involv ing high skew and rake levels and extreme radial pitch changes and radical differences in cross section at each stage along the tip to blade axis. Throughout the design process one thing has to be kept in the back of people s minds - can this prop actually be built? There is no point in designing the perfect propeller if it can t be built! . ---

How do you "weigh" a ship? Warship Displacement by Al Wellman 11 April 1999 Warship displacement is generally estimated by totaling individual weights of co nstruction materials, weapons, ammunition, propulsion and auxiliary machinery, and the crew . Where more than one displacement figure is provided, the larger figure also includes f uel, boiler feed water, food, and consumable stores. Different references may have different defi nitions for how much fuel, water, etc. Actual weight is computed from knowledge of hull geometry by determining the mas s of the volume of seawater displaced by the submerged hull. When interior equipment and hull geometry are kept secret, publications have used the displacement announced by t he nation owning the ship and some of these figures were intentionally mis-stated. Cargo ship tonnage is sometimes computed differently on the basis of volume of c argo holds. Tonnage Measurements used for Cargo Ships by Caspar Vermeulen 19 May 2003 Here is an overview of the tonnages used for cargo ships. In my profession (I wo rk in a maritime company) we use several tonnages: ----DWAT (Deadweight All Tonnage) - This is the total weight of fuel, cargo, equipme nt, etc., that the vessel can carry when fully loaded.

DWCC (Dead weight cargo capacity): This is most important for the Charterers (Wh ose cargo has to be shipped), because it gives the weight of the cargo that the vessel can carry. The more fuel the vessel needs the lower the DWCC is. This also depends on the water temp erature and the water (Salt, brackish, etc.). In the summer, vessels have a higher DWCC. GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage): Measurement of a ship calculated by taking the t otal enclosed volume of her hull below the upper deck as well as enclosed spaces abov e it (with certain exceptions, namely; double bottoms used for ballast and accommodation) i n cubic feet and dividing by 100. It is measured in accordance with the IMO International Con vention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships (1969). NRT (Net Registered Tonnage): Equals gross tonnage minus deductions for space oc cupied by crew accommodations, machinery, navigation equipment and bunkers. It represents space available for cargo. It is generally used for tax purposes and for harbor/canal dues. For the latter, you have the Suez and Panama Canal tonnages, which are generally higher (in orde r to collect more in tax payments). In shipping, the DWCC is the most important figure, although ship owners also lo ok at the NRT, because they have to pay the taxes. Car carriers have a very large GRT, but thei r cargo capacity is limited. For most modern cargo ships the relation of GRT to cargo capacity is about 1 : 1.4, but for large ore carriers (ore has a high density) this can be as high as 1 : 2 . . . ---

Skeg Design By Stuart Slade Updated 19 December 1998 Trying to put down everything would require about 12 PhD theses. Lets try a prim er then you can follow up with more precise questions. Skegs are a particular hull configuration aft. Normally, the prop shaft emerges from the hull plating and is carried aft on supporting struts to the screw. In a skeg arrangem ent, this is filled in so that the shaft runs through a downward-pointing finger of hull plating. There are several reasons why this is done. One is to provide protection to the shafts from combat (particularly torpedo) da mage. A skeg will not save the shaft that gets hit but it will deflect the blast downwards and sav e the shafts on the other side of the ship. Also, it will (hopefully) hold the shaft more rigid and prevent the shaft from getting bent while it rotates at high speed. If that happens, it is an unmi tigated disaster - the rotating shaft will rip the guts of the ship open (as happened to POW). The protection provided by the skegs is a lot more significant than just helping to defend the shafts. A twin-skeg arrangement aft enables the area between the skegs to be hol lowed out, reducing its cross-sectional area (thus resistance). This means that the hull ca n be widened out in that area, moving the magazines inboard, significantly increasing their protecti on. This also means that protection for things like the steering gear can be improved. Secondly, the skegs will help the water flow smoothly over the hull and propelle rs aft. This is a critical function - the propellers do not function properly if they are trying t o rotate in turbulent water. That is an understatement - they may not work at all or even damage the s hip by causing excessive vibration. On the Cutter I was on yesterday, it was almost impossible to stand in certain places on the fantail due to intense vibration from the screws. This was enough to cause hatch covers and other fittings to rattle loudly enough to drown out speech. --Two ships illustrate these uses of skegs. The North Carolina class had skegs on their inboard shafts that were for purely protective purposes (note that the orientation is to wards improving

armor defense of the magazines - skegs on the inboard shafts will do little to h elp against torpedo attack). On the South Dakota class, the skegs are on the outer shafts. Here, the motivati on was purely hydrodynamic; the skegs ensured that the hull cross-sectional area decreased smo othly as the design went further aft. Even though this arrangement appeared to offer better p rotection to the shafts than the inboard skegs arrangement, this is purely fortuitous. Any enhanc ement to protection was purely an afterthought. So, skegs are good, right? Well, sometimes. The problem is that the waterflow be tween the hull, the screws and the skegs is completely unpredictable. Nobody, and I do mean nobo dy, fully understands what actually happens at the rear end of a warship. Tank testing wit h models helps but there are scaling factors involved in there that nobody fully comprehends. A ship model can work just fine in a testing tank while the full-scale ship can develop horrendou s vibration. This happened with North Carolina and it took almost two years to sort-of cure. The p ower loading of the screws is critical also; this is the amount of power applied to each screw b y the engines. Skegs seem particularly prone to causing severe vibration, probably because they have such a dramatic effect on water flow that it outweighs other effects. Several later Ger man battleship designs had extremely large skegs aft overtly to protect the screws and rudders from torpedo attack. A close look at these designs shows that the designs in question could n ot possibly have had that effect (they may even have made matters worse), and I suspect the real reason, as with the US ships, was to improve hull width at the rear end of the ship. German hull designs were very fine (we'll define that term in a moment) with the result that the torpedo protection at the ends was very defective. The skegs on the later designs would have cured that pr oblem. Now we come to rudder placement. Some of this we covered earlier so I won't repe at. Like the screws, the rudders work best in smooth water. However, the very act of turning the rudder causes extreme turbulence. You can do a little practical experiment that shows t his if you have a bath with a detachable shower hose. Half fill the bath, then hold the hose under water and turn it on full blast. That will simulate the stream of water from the props. Now, hold your hand so the fingers are together and pointing straight down. That simulates a rudder. Lower your "rudder" into the water stream and start to turn your hand from side to side as if it is a rudder and you'll feel the vibration shaking your fingers. If this is bad enough, the vibration can damage the rudder post while the except ionally turbulent

flow off one side can cause extreme vibration in the screws on that side. It's n ot unlike an aircraft wing stalling - and just as dangerous. There are various things to do about it i ncluding balancing the rudder but the best place to start is to ensure that the flow of water off t he screws does not go near the props. If the rudder is going to be any good it has to have "authority" that is, it wil l be effective enough to turn the ship. The larger the ship, the more authority is needed. Authority i s increased by size and by being in smooth water, it is decreased by being in turbulence or stagnant areas. The latter are nasty. Sometimes, the flow off all the junk aft will interact so that patche s of water actually do not move at all. Since the rudder works by operating on moving water, a rudde r in still water

has NO AUTHORITY AT ALL. This is a tricky situation since stagnant areas only fo rm at certain speeds and the captain only finds out about them when he is heading flat out at a harbor wall and he finds his steering doesn't work. This tends to be a career-limiting situation. If there is a big ship, it may help to divide the rudder into two smaller ones a nd work them together. This is not as easy as it sounds - the mechanism is very similar to fr ont-wheel steering on a car (CEN - your assistance needed here!). Twin rudders have problems all of their own. Its even possible to have triple or quadruple rudders. The style usually is (the se days) to place a rudder in the water pushed back by the screw (the screw race). This used to be a very risky design gamble on vibration grounds but computers have made it a lot more palatab le. On drag, we have lots of fun. Basically (and this is very basic) drag on a hull is related to changes in cross-sectional area. The more slowly the cross sectional area, the l ower the drag. A hull with a very low rate of cross sectional area change is called a fine hull, one with a very rapid change is a bluff hull. The problem is that fine hulls are inherently weak, espe cially at their ends (remember the lecture on stress?) while bluff hulls tend to be stronger. There are lots of tricks that can be played here. It is possible to convince the water that the hull is finer than it is (skegs and other tricks). It is also possible to chop the stern of the ship off so that it ends abruptly (a transom stern). Water can't understand this so it acts as if the end is not chopped off and treats the hull as if the rear end is optimally fine. This dodge saves both weight and drag. It also creates a large stagnant area aft which can cause some serious problems. Back in the 1920s the British built a minelayer with a transom stern, HMS Adventure. This was brilliantly designed so that the mines were laid into the patch of stagnant wate r- where they bobbed along aft of the ship until they got sucked into the screws. Again smoothness is critical - the hull has to be designed so that water flows p ast with as few disruptions as possible. That is why hulls use long smooth curves rather than ab rupt discontinuities (usually - there are exceptions). The hull design has to direct water smoothly into the props and over the rudder and allow the races from those bit to be carried a way smoothly. Furthermore, the water flow has to follow those hull curves and not separate fro m them - that can cause hideous problems all of its own. None of these factors is independent - change one and it has impacts on all the rest. That is why nobody really understands what happens at the end of a ship - its just too compl ex to be understood. All the designer can do is make his best guesses, try it out in a ta nk and pray. Then

build the ship. . . ---

Why one thick deck is better than two thin ones By Daniel (Cen) Mercer Updated 05 February 1999 Here's the short answer to the multiple thin decks vs. the single thick one. The issue is local stiffness, in this case the only area that matters is that at the point of impact of the shell (or immediately surrounding it). Penetration by a shell is very similar to a hardness test. The area hit with the penetrator is small, but there is a given amount of support around it due to whatever is holding it. In the case of armor plate, there is framing behind the plate which supports it and adds stiffn ess. Since this framing is assumed to be distant relative to the impact zone of the shell it is ignored for immune zone calculations. Since the framing is ignored, we can cut to the heart of the matter. The only wa y to locally increase the stiffness of the plate without considering the framing behind it is to thicken it (or add shape to it - but this is not feasible when the plate is rolled and surface hardened ("cemented")). When a shell strikes armor it must first penetrate the surface, and then deform (or splinter) the rest of the plate out of the way. The stiffness of the plate is critical in dete rmining whether or not the shell will penetrate. --If we were looking at this as a structural analysis, the many thin plates with t he spacing would be considerably stiffer in a structural calculation like bending (EXPONENTIALLY sti ffer as the thickness of the steel's value to the moment of inertia a given distance perpend icular to the axis of loading of the structure is cubed in standard calculations ("h^3" below), and then the distance between the thinner plates factors in AGAIN (as the distance from the neutral be nding axis to the extreme fiber "c") in the calculation for stress) - the formula for moment of in ertia (I) of a