Scale Model Testing at AMC Improves Hull Design of New Fast Crew Boat

March 18, 2021

A highly manoeuvrable and hydrodynamically efficient fast crew boat (FCB) that was scale model tested at the Australian Maritime College has been successfully handed over to its new owners at a ceremony in Singapore (full story here).

The Generation 3 hull form vessel was developed by Strategic Marine in close collaboration with long-term design partner Southerly Designs in Western Australia and was extensively tested at the AMC towing tank in Launceston.

The recent delivery represents the 7th vessel in service featuring the generation 3 hull form.

Commercial access to the towing tank and hydrodynamic experts is facilitated through the AMC’s training and consultancy division AMC Search.

Southerly Designs commissioned AMC to help verify improvements to the hull design and through two stages of tank testing, significant efficiency improvements were identified.

The initial round of tests was conducted on a physical scale model of the original design and they were designed to provide advice and baseline data on potential further improvements that could be made to the hull.

The second round included commissioning a second scale model based on the suggested improvements to the hull design.

When compared, the resultant resistance-on-displacement ratios (which can be used as a measure of the hydrodynamic efficiency of a hull) with all other similar monohull models tested at AMC (at the upper end of the tested speeds), found that the optimised hull had better hydrodynamic efficiency than any monohull of similar size ever tested at the AMC (up to that date).

The outcomes from this project have now successfully filtered through to numerous new designs for semi-planing vessels from Southerly Designs, including offshore service vessels, fishing boats and patrol vessels such as the Tasmania Police vessel “Cape Wickham”.

AMC Search is proud to be associated with such a successful project and please contact Manager of Projects Nic Bender on n.bender@amc.edu.au for information about commercial access to our hydrodynamics consultancy services.

Services include full scale model making, hydrodynamic testing in Australia’s only commercially available towing tank, CFD simulations and more.