Determination of main dimensions and estimation of propulsion power of a ship

TEU number, which is the container ships’ crucial designing factor, directly influences the main hull dimensions such as displacement V , length L, breadth B, draught T, their combinations and block coefficient CB. The main dimensions have a great impact on developing the ships resistant performance. Thus, it is really fundamental to establish the correct dimensions of the hull during the design and ship building process. Estimating the shape of the ship’s hull, that comprises its main dimensions, is one of the basic tasks as part of the preliminary design stage. The most significant decisions determining ships performance, its duration and building costs are made at the beginning of the preliminary stage, when the costs are relatively low. It is important to limit the total ship resistance, for instance, by lowering the wave ship resistance as much as possible, especially when the operational speed and TEU number carried by one vessel is increasing. That resistance depends on the operational speed expressed by Froude number. The resistance criteria and the existing hull dimensions limits, resulting from ships route, must be taken into consideration bearing in mind safety conditions such as ships stability and seaworthiness, when the main ships dimensions are being determined. In the paper are presented general rules for calculations of ship’s hull principle dimensions and total power of engines of container ship 1300TEU and 18 kn at preliminary stage of design process.