Investigation Into the Hydrodynamic Performance of Gate Rudder Maneuvering Under Wake Conditions

Abstract As a new type of energy-saving and maneuvering device, the Gate rudder provides additional thrust, while the rudder blades on both sides of the propeller can be individually controlled to enhance the ship's maneuverability. The gate rudder system was first proposed by Japanese scholar Kuribayashi in 2011. The first comprehensive application of the gate rudder was achieved on a container ship in Japan, and the results showed that in addition to improving the propulsion efficiency of the ship, it saved about 14% of fuel in sea trials and exhibited excellent maneuverability, noise, and vibration characteristics. As of now, research on the gate rudder is still being further improved. On the one hand, research on the design, energy-saving effects, and energy-saving mechanisms of gate rudder is mostly based on model experiments, and their design accuracy and time cost need to be further improved; on the other hand, research on the control performance of gate rudder is still in the preliminary stage. Therefore, this article is based on the Japan Bulk Carrier (JBC) standard model ship and uses the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method to analyze the hydrodynamic performance under the condition of gate rudder control considering the influence of the wake field.