The Wave-Line Theory

摘要

Long before William Froude began the model tests that led to his well-known laws of ship resistance, the wave-line theory of John Scott Russell took center stage in the world of 19th-century naval architecture. Russell was a well-respected and mathematically-minded Scottish shipbuilder, who became active just as Britain was entering the Victorian age, an era of great industrial upheaval. Russell developed the wave-line theory in 1835 while searching for ways to improve the newly-developed steam canal boat. He believed that conventional blunt water-lines pushed a bow wave of water in front of them, but that narrow, mathematically-defined "wave-line" waterlines would move the water along the sides of the vessel without creating waves, thus substantially lowering resistance.