RESISTANCE AND POWER ESTIMATION FOR AN AIRBOAT FOR NIGER DELTA PLIABILITY

The paper investigated the Resistance and Propulsion analysis for an Airboat which was carried out using numerical and experimental methods. The experimental procedure was carried out in a Towing Tank. From the Towing tank results, the model speed of 1.01, 1.34, 1.68, 2.01, 2.35, 2.68, 3.02, 3.35 m/s was used to obtain the total resistance result for the Airboat as 0.9, 1.94, 3.04, 3.49, 4.62, 5.82, 5.83, 5.84 N respectively and the power requirement to overcome the total resistance of the model Airboat at the different speed is obtained as 0.909, 2.60, 5.12, 7.01, 10.86, 15.60, 17.61, 19.56 W respectively. After obtaining the total hull resistance coefficient for the vessel, the total hull resistance for the real Airboat is obtained as 566.72, 1306.94, 2110.52, 2240.66, 2908.34, 3713.43, 3583.25, 3350 N at the speed of 3.86, 5.14, 6.43, 7.71, 9.00, 10.28, 11.57, 12.85 m/s while the power to overcome the ship resistance is obtained as 2185, 6718, 13560, 17275, 26161, 38174, 41440, 43050 W respectively and these were also validated with different analytical methods with an error margin less than 5%. Mathematical modelling of the Airboat propulsion at the propeller blade was performed and results validated with ANSYS fluent. From the resistance analysis, the power necessary to propel the vessel was determined and simulated for different analytical methods at maximum speed and a 66kW engine was selected to power the Airboat. The original contribution of the work is that it considered the flat bottom planing craft like the Airboat