PREDICTION OF RESIDUAL RESISTANCE OF A TRIMARAN VESSEL BY USING AN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

Trimaran hull forms have been popular recently in both commercial and military usage due to reduction in resistance at high speeds, better stability, and greater deck area compared to conventional monohull vessels. Determination of the location of the side hulls is most critical to get higher hydrodynamic performance. Therefore, many studies in the literature are related to defining the location of the side hulls for trimaran vessels. Most of the studies have been carried out experimentally or numerically. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was used to predict the residual resistance coefficient of a trimaran model. The model uses four parameters which are the transverse and longitudinal positions of the side hulls, the longitudinal centre of buoyancy and the Froude number to predict the residual resistance of the trimaran model. The experimental data of the trimaran model were used to train the neural network model in order to develop a more reliable model. Several neural network models were developed and tested to find the one with minimum error. The study showed that the residual resistance coefficients of the trimaran model were predicted with high accuracy levels compared to the model experimental data. It was also shown that an ANN is a useful alternative method to model tests and numerical simulations. The developed model can be used to reduce the number of model tests or numerical simulations as well as to obtain the optimum location of the side hulls in terms of resistance.