APPLICATION OF SHIP SIMULATIONS ON THE TEXAS COAST TO UPDATE DESIGN GUIDANCE FOR CONCEPTUAL NAVIGATION CHANNEL DESIGN

This presentation describes design lessons from application of ship simulations on the Texas Coast over the last 30 years. The most recent US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) design guidance (USACE 2006) for determining channel dimensions was compared to results of ship simulations to evaluate the effectiveness of both the simulations and existing guidance. That comparison revealed general lessons to be applied by engineers when planning ship simulations for navigation channel design and specifically updates design vessel beam multipliers for channel width on the Texas Coast or similar locations for some design conditions.