Resumen
Predicting the propulsive power of ships with high accuracy still remains a challenge. Well established practices in the 1978 ITTC Power Prediction method have been questioned such as the form factor approach and its determination method. This paper investigates the possibility to improve the power predictions by the introduction of a combined CFD/EFD Method where the experimental determination of form factor is replaced by double body RANS computations. Following the Quality Assurance Procedure proposed by ITTC, a best practice guideline has been derived for the CFD based form factor determination method by applying systematic variations to the CFD set-ups. Following the verification and validation of the CFD based form factor method in model scale, the full scale speed-power-rpm relations between large number of speed trials and full scale predictions using the CFD based form factors in combination with ITTC-57 line and numerical friction lines are investigated. It is observed that the usage of CFD based form factors improves the predictions in general and no deterioration is noted within the limits of this study. Therefore, the combination of EFD and CFD is expected to provide immediate improvements to the 1978 ITTC Performance Prediction Method.