Hydrodynamic modeling of semi-planing hulls with air cavities

High-speed heavy loaded monohull ships can benefit from application of drag-reducing air cavities under stepped hull bottoms. The subject of this paper is the steady hydrodynamic modeling of semi-planing air-cavity hulls. The current method is based on a linearized potential-flow theory for surface flows. The mathematical model description and parametric calculation results for a selected configuration with pressurized and open air cavities are presented.