PacMar Technologies LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N231-052

Description

Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) and combatant ships require affordable, reliable, fuel efficient, proven hull forms.  Commercially available designs offer a good baseline but typically lack fuel efficiency across the broad operational speeds required by military vessels.  The operational speed variance of USVs make broad range fuel efficiency even more critical.  Existing hydrodynamic hull appendages (HHAs) have demonstrated the ability to improve fuel efficiency. However, their benefits vary across the ship’s speed range and have not provided a consistent benefit across a broad range of Froude numbers (0.15 – 0.75). Additionally, some HHAs rely on shipboard hydraulic systems, which can lead to cost and reliability issues. The US Navy desires an advanced, reliable, wide-range HHA to enable commercially available hull designs to provide affordable, reliable, fuel-efficient capability. PacMar Technologies proposes its Bow Lifting Body (BLB) technology as the hydrodynamic hull appendage solution for meeting the Navy’s requirements. Over 20 years of marine technology development using state-of-the-art modeling and simulation coupled with correlation to scale model and full-scale prototype tests have advanced our knowledge related to lifting body ships at various sizes and speeds.  PacMar Technologies will leverage this experience to design and integrate the advanced, wide-range HHA solution. The BLB is an approach toward efficiency through a combination of wave cancellation, wetted area reduction, and dynamic lift.  The integration of a BLB to an existing hull can be accomplished without drastically altering the vessel’s overall draft, length, or beam.  The only change would be a faired section near the bow to provide a structural joint from the hull to the BLB. Since no mission-critical components typically exist in this area of the bow, no negative impacts to vessel operations are introduced.  Additionally, the added mass of the BLB reduces pitch motions when operating in a seaway and can also reduce added resistance.  The benefits of a BLB also scale extremely well to a variety of hull sizes and hull configurations. PacMar Technologies has successfully applied these systems to monohulls, trimarans, and catamarans of various sizes in past projects.