A comparative study for resistance prediction using different RANS solvers

Ship resistance prediction with reliable accuracy is essential for optimum ship design and propulsion power prediction. The paper discusses calm water resistance and motion prediction of a bulk carrier using three different RANS solvers. The Japan Bulk Carrier (JBC) model has been studied for calm water resistance, sinkage, and trim prediction at design speed. For the study, an in-house CFD tool, SHIP_Motion, an open source CFD toolkit, OpenFOAM, and a commercial CFD solver, StarCCM+, has been used. Initially, a detailed verification study has been performed for the solvers, followed by a validation study. The study provides a rough comparison in terms of accuracy and resource consumption for the solutions. The paper mostly focuses on sharing the relative advantages and disadvantages of each solver from the user's perspective.