Method to Determine the Propulsion Characteristics of a Ship Moving in Ice

Abstract

In designing modern vessels, calculating the propulsion performance of ships in ice is important, including propeller effective thrust, number of revolutions, consumed power, and ship speed. Such calculations allow for more accurate prediction of the ice performance of a designed ship and provide inputs for designers of ship power and automation systems. Preliminary calculations of ship propulsion and thrust characteristics in ice can enable predictions of full-scale ice resistance without measuring the propeller thrust during sea trials. Measuring propeller revolutions, ship speed, and the power delivered to propellers could be sufficient to determine the propeller thrust of the vessel. At present, significant difficulties arise in determining the thrust of icebreakers and ice-class ships in ice conditions. These challenges are related to the fact that the traditional system of propeller/hull interaction coefficients does not function correctly in ice conditions. The wake fraction becomes negative and tends to minus infinity starting from a certain value of the propeller advance coefficient. This issue prevents accurate determination of the performance characteristics, thrust, and rotational speed of the propulsors. In this study, an alternative system of propeller/hull interaction coefficients for ice is proposed. It enables the calculation of all propulsion parameters in ice based on standard hydrodynamic tests with self-propulsion models. An experimental method is developed to determine alternative propeller/hull interaction coefficients. A prediction method is suggested to determine propulsion performance in ice based on the alternative interaction coefficient system. A case study applying the propulsion prediction method for ice conditions is provided. This study also discusses the following issues of ship operation in ice: the scale effect of icebreaker propellers and the prospects for introducing an ice interaction coefficient.

Keywords

Icebreaker / Model experiment / Interaction coefficients / Propeller / Calculation / Off-design mode / Propulsion characteristics / Ship moving in ice

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature