Numerical study on the manoeuvring of a container ship in regular waves

Ships operate in seaways, but ship manoeuvrability is usually studied in calm water conditions, thus ignoring the effects of wave on the ship hydrodynamic behaviour. So, the assessment of surface ship manoeuvrability in wave environment is more realistic and accurate than its estimation in calm water condition. In the present study, captive dynamic ship model tests are numerically simulated in a computational fluid dynamics environment in regular head sea waves and the hydrodynamic derivatives are derived from the estimated force/moment time series using the Fourier series expansion method. These derivatives and wave excitation forces are fitted in the manoeuvring equations of motion and are solved to simulate the ship standard manoeuvres in head sea waves. Parameters of these definitive manoeuvres in wave condition are compared with those in still-water condition.