Numerical Investigation of the Effect of T-Foil on the Reduction of Catamaran Motions Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

One of the main concerns of the design of vessels, especially the high-speed vessels, is the control of their motions at sea. Several practical methods, including the use of fin, trim tab, T-foil, and various other modalities have been studied so far. What has been specifically investigated in this study is the study of the effect of T-foil on the reduction of Heave and Pitch motions in regular waves with different wavelengths and angles of impact. For the analysis, the numerical modeling method was used with the computational fluid dynamics method and the STAR CC + software was used for all experiments. In this study, in the no-foil mode and in order to calibrate the software setup, a comprehensive study was performed on the effect of the number of meshes and the time-step for solving the problem and the numerical results were compared with the experimental results for the no-foil mode, which has very good convergence. Then, by studying the T-foil on the reduction of the Heave and Pitch motions of the catamaran , it was concluded that the T-foil had a much more favorable effect on the reduction of the Heave and Pitch motions at angles of impact near 180 °. This is due to the angle of impact of the foil to the surface of the foil, which creates a lifting force in front of the vessel , which is the basis for the reduction of Pitch motion and the creation of longitudinal anti-Pitch moment.