Development and assessment of a ship maneuvering simulation model

Abstract

A nonlinear maneuvering model based on ship geometric and mass properties is developed. The model can be utilized to evaluate maneuvering performance early in the design phase. This model is also used in this thesis as a benchmark in order to evaluate the accuracy of the simpler Nomoto's model. The latter is faster to simulate and is ideally suited for visual simulation studies. Results comparing the relative accuracy and speed of implementation of the two models are presented for different inputs and geometric properties. An improvement to Nomoto's model is suggested which greatly increases accuracy while maintaining high speed of real time implementation. Furthermore, a series of parametric studies is performed in order to evaluate the sensitivity of fundamental maneuvering properties in terms of basic ship geometric quantities.