A study of dead water resistance Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes simulations of a barge moving in stratified waters

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics, with the software OpenFOAM, has ben used to investi- gate the dead water phenomenon. Investigation was done by simulating a barge moving in stratified waters. Comparison of the turbulence models k − epsilon and k − omega SST has been conducted, resulting in a better performance in estimating drag by the k − omega SST model. Simulations of the barge moving in stratified fluid is shown to generate internal gravity waves below and in the wake of the barge. The internal gravity waves cause the barge to experience an increase in drag for subcritical densimetric Froude numbers (Frh ). Max- imum drag is shown to appear in regions of 0.6 ≤ F r h ≤ 0.7. Internal gravity waves restrict the passage area causing an acceleration of the flow downstream of the barge, resulting in thinning of boundary layer and in drop of pressure.