Assessing the aerodynamic performance of Flettner rotors on the MARIN Hybrid Transition Coaster (MHTC)

摘要

The Flettner rotor is the most popular device in recent market introductions of Wind Assisted Ship Propulsion (WASP) vessels. Flettner rotors provide shipowners with a low operational impact wind propulsion concept, with a reported overall power saving of up to 15%. Even though Flettner rotors are often retrofitted, recent newbuild projects are incorporating the rotors in the ship design phase, which enables them to be fully integrated and achieve even bigger savings. In the literature, the performance of wind propulsors is generally derived from wind tunnel testing data or CFD analysis examining undisturbed incoming flows. Those experimental or numerical databases are often omitting the interactions with the ship and its superstructures, which may lead to the incorrect assessment of the wind propulsion performance. We wanted to find out more about these interaction effects.