The effect of non-homogeneous roughness on full-scale drag predictions

该项目与世界领先的防污船舶涂料供应商之一阿克苏诺贝尔合作，将提供新的工具，用于预测因海洋生物在船体上定居而污染的船舶的阻力损失。所有可用的预测都假定粗糙度均匀分布。然而，我们知道生物污垢总是不完整的，因此预测方法需要升级。向船舶经营者提出令人信服的商业案例取决于这些预测，其中防污解决方案的成本与继续使用粗糙船体的成本进行权衡。因此，这里开发的新工具将使船舶运营商能够优化船体清洁和重新喷漆计划，从而提高船舶效率。

Partnering with AkzoNobel, one of the world’s leading suppliers of anti-fouling marine coatings, this project will deliver new tools for predicting the drag penalty on ships fouled by the settlement of marine organisms on the hull. All available predictions assume a homogeneous distribution of roughness. Yet we know biofouling is always patchy, hence prediction methods need an upgrade. Making a compelling business case to ship operators is contingent on such predictions, where the cost of anti-fouling solutions is weighed against that of continued operation with a rough hull. The novel tools developed here will therefore lead to increased ship efficiency by empowering ship operators to optimise hull cleaning and repainting schedules.