Efficient Rudder Design and Operation for Wind-Assisted Ships

Research Project, 2024 – 2026

The use of wind for ship propulsion has seen vast increase in interest in the last few years as a means to achieve fossil free transportation. When a marine propeller is used along with the wind unit, its operating conditions differ strongly to conventional vessels, even down to zero power for fully sailing ships. This will greatly influence the operation of the rudder as the reduced slipstream will lead to reduced function for current conventional rudder designs while at the same time the requirements on course keeping increases with a ship sailing at drift due to the wind unit.

This issue is well acknowledged but little effort has been put into studying it.

In this project, we will remedy this gap by studying rudder performance behind a propeller operating at the full range of loads, from 100% power to 0% for fully sailing conditions, including the motor sailing conditions in between. This will be done both for a baseline case, that will be created as an open reference case, as well as for rudder designs developed for (motor) sailing vessels. Generated outcome will serve both as a general knowledge development and as rudder design/selection guidelines.