Designing Navy Hull Forms for Fuel Economy

During initial hull form design, a multitude of requirements need to be met. Among these are mission, ship size, armament, communications, stability, speed, sea keeping, etc. Tools such as ASSET are used to arrive at a design solution that will satisfy all these requirements. However, at this early design stage, attention needs to be given to the hull form shape, and its impact upon fuel consumption. Rising fuel costs and the need to conserve energy have mandated that Navy designs become more “energy efficient."

This paper documents a new design metric "C_PE" for evaluating the resistance of any hull design. A C_PE database is developed from historic model test data residing in the U.S. Navy Hull Design Database System (HDDS). C_PE compares the resistance of a hull form to that of a similar Taylor Standard Series hull form. The paper also introduces a new hull form optimization computer program developed by Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and applies this program to show the potential for hull form improvement and fuel cost savings.