Adjoint-based Hull Design for Wake Optimisation

The hull of a generic container vessel was redesigned with the aid of RANS-based adjoint sensitivity analysis in order to improve the quality of the wake field. The redesign was carried out manually at model scale using the sensitivity derivatives of two wake objective functions introduced into the adjoint method. Both flow and adjoint solvers are based on an unstructured finite volume discretisation of incompressible flow equations. The distribution of the sensitivity derivatives with respect to design parameters yields valuable insight into the design problem from the objective point of view. The method can identify key influences and lead to an improved wake field after two design cycles.