Calibrating and measuring wakes and drag forces of inland vessels in confined water in a towing tank

International audienceThis paper gives a review of the experimental methods developed in the towing tank of the Pprime Institute of the University of Poitiers, France, for the characterization of ship wakes and drag forces in confined waters. Different waterway configurations in calm water and in the presence of a current are reproduced in the experimental facility and small scale ship models of different block coefficients are considered. Stereoscopic optical methods have been developed in the laboratory for the measurement of the free surface deformation around the ship. The full wake generated by the ship is fully characterized and its hydraulic and undulatory properties are analyzed in both real space and spectral domain. In addition, a system for the measurement of the ship drag force has been set up and visualizations of the wakes have been performed in parallel with a high-speed camera, to relate the ship resistance crisis with its visual footprint in the wake