Carrousel Tug Design IMC HOME PAGECarrousel拖船的设计IMC主页.docVIP

Carrousel Tug Design By Dr. M. van der Laan IMC Synopsis Nowadays tug design can be characterized by keeping the hull direction in line with the towing wire and rotating the thrust force 360-degree around. The new carrousel tug design can be characterized by rotating the hull direction free from the towing wire. This carrousel consists of a large horizontal ring, rotating around the accommodation and fitted with the towing wire. The attachment in the side reduces the heeling moment sharply and enables to use the full extent of the dynamic hull forces for escorting (steering and braking). Fig. 1 Scale model of the carrousel on a conventional Combi tug 1. Introduction 1.1 Present design focus on propulsion The past 20 - 25 years design of harbor tugs has concentrated on developing and improving the propulsion and the associated maneuverability. Propulsion moved from single to double prop, various nozzles and rudder types were introduced and finally the propulsion developed into omnidirectional thrust by two or more thrusters [1], [2] or VSP [3]. This development forms the base of the present day tendency of fully omnidirectional propulsion with ever increasing bollard pull and with to a lesser extent use of hydrodynamic forces by skegs and/or box keels [4] and [5]. 1.2 Little focus on towing wire attachment In contrast to the extensive developments in tug propulsion, relative little developments were seen in the towing wire attachment to the ship’s hull. Already dating back to the fifties, many tow hooks were based on some kind of radial support (e.g. ‘Seebeck patent’) using a half circular vertical guiding support of the towing hook to move the attachment point towards the side and thereby reduce the heeling arm, see fig. 2. Radial supports have also been used to support fairleads instead of towing hooks. For further recent developments on radial support, see e.g. [6]. Fig. 2 The effect of a radial support (C) and normal attachment (N) For conventional tugs, thi