Application Of Vortex Generators On Ship Hull

Flow separation and vortices observed in the wake region of RunJiang NO.1 research vessel are major causes of the unexpected drag increase. There are two control approaches proposed in this research. The Flow Deflector (FD) was used to cover the cylinder struts of the Z-pellers in ship stern. The Vortex Generators (VGs) was installed on the bilge area of the vessel stern. VGs have been widely used in aircraft industry to prevent or delay flow separation over wings. The mechanism of VG is to introduce vortices into the flow ahead of the separation point to energize the boundary layer and thus to delay the flow separation. The experimental research on RunJiang NO.1 ship model with FD and VG was conducted in the towing tank of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The towing test results demonstrate that FD has great effects in resistance improvement and VGs could restrain the flow separation with free surface existence. These flow separation control approaches have great help to improve the ship resistance performance.