An Inverse Hull Design Problem in Minimizing the Wash Wave of a Catamaran

The Levenberg-Marquardt Method (LMM) and the commercial code SHIPFLOW are utilized in the present inverse hull design problem for minimizing wash wave of the catamaran. The hull form of the catamaran is described by the B-spline surface method so that the shape of the hull can be completely specified using only a small number of parameters (i.e. control points). The technique of parameter estimation for the inverse design problem is thus chosen. In the present studies, the inverse hull design method can not only be applied to estimate the hull form based on the known wave data of the target ship but also be applied to estimate the unknown hull form based on the reduced wave height. The optimal hull forms of minimizing wash wave for a typical catamaran in deep water at service speed and at the critical speed of shallow water are estimated, respectively. Moreover, the hull form performing well under both conditions can also be obtained by combining the optimal hull forms for deep water and shallow water. Numerical results show that the hull form designed by inverse hull design method can minimize the wash wave significantly in comparison with the original design configuration.