Dispositivos hidrodinâmicos economizadores de energia em embarcações de transporte de gás

Abstract

Energy Saving Devices (ESD) is appendages attached to the hull, which may be arranged upstream or downstream of the propeller an it can change the flow in those regions in order to improve the performance of the vessels. Due to environmental restrictions these devices have been increasingly used in the naval industry decrease in order to decrease fuel consumption and consequently, marine pollution. This work analyzes the geometry of an ESD in a LNG transporting vessel in order to increase the propulsive efficiency of the ship. It was used a commercial CFD (Computational Fluid Mechanics) software to calculate propeller characteristics, the resistance and the propulsive characteristics in the Self-Propulsion Test, in the model and prototype scale. During the work is discussed the model’s set up, boundary conditions and characteristics of the meshes. In addition to the numerical study, it was used experimental results of the model scale in order to validate as computational simulations, which gives more reliability to these. After this step, they were added the ESDs in the hull of the ship to evaluate propulsive efficiency changes. The result obtained shows that in the point of view of propulsive efficiency, it is advantageous to use these hydrodynamics devices.