Abstract
Kanmon Strait, where more than seven hundreds ships pass in a day, is known as one of the most difficult straits for ship navigation in Japan. This strait is narrow and the maximum velocity of tidal current is faster than ten knots in some cases. So, those who are engaged in safety navigation of this strait request more accurate forecast of tidal current in the Kanmon Strait.
For this purpose, we created a new system to forecast more precisely the tidal current in the Kanmon Strait. The system is based upon a two-dimensional numerical simulation model of the whole Kanmon Strait. The goal of this system is to be able to consider the meteorological effect, which cannot be taken into account the conventional method based upon harmonic constituents, for the tidal current.
Calculated tidal currents were compared with observed ones. High reliability of the tidal current simulation was confirmed to some degree.
It is intended to open the result of the simulation on the Internet, so the system will have a visual presentaion function that displays tidal current vector or tidal curves on Internet browser at the PC.
