Hull Water Resistance Calculation of a Seaplane Twin Float with Clearance Ratio Variation Configurations

Abstract

Amphibians are a special aircraft that can operate on waters. Different from ordinary airplanes, these planes do not need airport facilities and can take off and land on water. A pontoon or float is an airtight hollow structure that floats on water. There are one or more floating pontoons attached to seaplanes. The purpose of this study is to calculate the hull shape resistance of a catamaran seaplane float. A numerical simulation was performed to predict its total fluid resistance of the twin float, as well as an investigation into interference phenomenon. The results are validated by using available experimental data investigated before. CFDSOF is used to predict the hull resistance. It was chosen because of its online training, and its open source. A numerical simulation of catamaran seaplane float model with symmetric demi-hull with three variations of hull separation was conducted with Operating Empty Weight (OEW) of Indonesian Aerospace (IAe) N219 airplane. Simulations were conducted with the model with Froude number ranging from 0.40 to 0.75. A mesh with four hundred thousand of cells has been chosen, with an 8% error of mesh convergence.