Reducing hydrodynamic resistance remains a central concern in modern ship design. The Simulation-Based Design technique offers high-fidelity optimization through computational fluid dynamics, but this comes at the cost of computational efficiency. In contrast, surrogate models trained offline can accelerate the process but often compromise on accuracy. To address this issue, this study proposes a hybrid optimization framework connecting a computational fluid dynamics solver and a convolutional neural network surrogate model within a dual-mode mechanism. By comparing selected computational fluid dynamics evaluations with surrogate predictions during each iteration, the system is able to balance the precision and efficiency adaptively. The framework integrates a particle swarm optimizer, a free-form deformation modeler, and a dual-mode solver. Case studies on three benchmark hulls including KCS, KVLCC1, and JBC have shown 3.40%, 3.95%, and 2.74% resistance reduction, respectively, with computation efficiency gains exceeding 44% compared to the traditional Simulation-Based Design process using full computational fluid dynamics. This study provides a practical attempt to enhance the efficiency of hull form optimization while maintaining accuracy.
Dong et al. (Tue,) studied this question.