ABSTRACT
During the process of designing a new ship the designer has to answer a lot of questions. Some of them refer to the manoeuvrability of a ship. Moreover, the IMO regulations define precisely the minimum manoeuvring requirements. The possibility to determine the manoeuvring properties in early stage of design results in significant reduction of cost and time. There have been developed numerous mathematical models describing a motion of a ship. The authors of those methods usually report common problems like poor accuracy, limited range of application, or need of model tests to determine characteristics and coefficients. Recent advances in IT and CFD are promising in solving problems referring to the need of model tests. In the opinion of the present authors the CFD is mature enough to determine most of hydrodynamic characteristics necessary to simulate ship manoeuvres. The characteristics of hull, propeller and rudder and interactions between hull, propeller and rudder can be determined separately with confidence. In this paper the authors present the attempt to determine the hull hydrodynamic forces using the results of CFD computations of ship flow.
