Journal of Naval Sciences and Engineering, cilt.22, sa.1, ss.189-212, 2026 (TRDizin)
Ship aerodynamics studies are increasing in recent years due to the developments in aerodynamic design of the ships. Ship superstructures are designed carefully for better performance of systems and sensors located on the superstructure. Also ship-helicopter interaction comes into mind when the ship has a flight deck for landing and take-off operations. In this study, a comprehensive validation of ship airwake was made for the well-known benchmark model, ONR Tumblehome (ONRT), in model scale. Numerical analyses were carried out solving the unsteady RANS equations with hexahedral finite volume elements. Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) was used to create more realistic velocity profile in the computational domain. Following the validation, columnar vortex generators (CVG) were designed and integrated to the ship superstructure as the passive controller of the airwake. Impressive healing on the airwake was observed when CVG is located on the ship. The use of appropriate CVG geometry shortened the recirculation region and the reattachment length. This finding leads to lower turbulence intensity and fluctuations over the flight deck.