Optimization of Hydrofoil Section for High-Speed Vessel by Using CFD

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical method to design a caviatation-free hydrofoil section of a high-speed vessel. Minimum pressure on wing surface has a close relation to occurrence of cavitation. So minimum pressure is included as a constrains or an objective function in optimization problems for getting a hydrofoil section which has a good cavitation performance. These problems are solved by using Feasible Direction Method, a kind of nonlinear programming method, and B-spline function expresses movement of a wing section. CFD is applied for the evaluation of hydrodynamic forces and pressure values. A design problem for optimizing lift-to drag with constraints of minimum pressure on wing surface, and a one for optimizing minimum pressure with constraints of lift coefficient are solved by the present method. And these results show that the present method is useful for optimum design of a hydrofoil section which avoids cavitation.