Date of Award

8-2008

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Program

Engineering

Department

Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering

Major Professor

Birk, Lothar

Second Advisor

Vorus, William

Third Advisor

Ioup, George

Abstract

The development of a three dimensional B-Spline based method, which is suitable for the steady-state potential flow analysis of free surface piercing bodies in hydrodynamics, is presented. The method requires the B-Spline or Non Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) representation of the body as an input. In order to solve for the unknown potential, the source surface, both for the body as well as the free surface, is represented by NURBS surfaces. The method does not require the body surface to be discritized into flat panels. Therefore, instead of a mere panel approximation, the exact body geometry is utilized for the computation. The technique does not use a free surface Green's function, which already satisfies the linear free surface boundary conditions, but uses a separate source patch for the free surface. By eliminating the use of a free surface Green's function, the method can be extended to considering non-linear free surface conditions, thus providing the possibility for wave resistance calculations. The method is first applied to the double body flow problem around a sphere and a Wigley hull. Some comparisons are made with exact solutions to validate the accuracy of the method. Results of linear free surface conditions are then presented.

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The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

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