Exploratory-Level Prediction of the Hydrodynamics of Victorian-Era Steamships

Abstract

While computational fluid dynamics or large-scale testing of bespoke models probably offer the most accurate ways of determining the resistance characteristics of historic ships, the long-established semi-empirical method, which dates back to the 1870’s, may still have an important part to play. It could be argued that many aspects of historical ship research are primary concerned with comparative studies rather than establishing absolute values which are the main concern of today’s naval architects. These comparative studies could take the form of testing out a series of “what-if” scenarios which in turn implies a large number of input variables many of which – outside of a few well-documented museum ships – are likely to be far less well-defined than would be acceptable in a modern design office. Large-scale model tests and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses tend to be “resource-hungry”. What can be processed in seconds using spreadsheets or similar level software – albeit at the cost of some loss in accuracy – may take many hours or even days using more advanced methods.

The characteristics of late 19^th Century ships fit reasonably well within available semi-empirical envelopes. This paper attempts to validate two such semi-empirical methods using trial data, published CFD results and model tests for three steamships: HMS Leviathan (1900), HMS Warrior (1860) and the Steamship Great Britain (1843). One Victorian-era sailing ship, the Cutty Sark (1869) and one Georgian-era warship, HMS Victory (1758- ) are also considered as part of this evaluation exercise.