Statistical Prediction of Wake Fields on Propeller Plane by Neural Network using Back-Propagation

Abstract

A number of numerical methods like Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) have been developed to predict the flow fields of a vessel but the present study is developed to infer the wake fields on propeller plane by Statistical Fluid Dynamics(SFD) approach which is emerging as a new technique over a wide range of industrial fields nowadays. Neural network is well known as one prospective representative of the SFD tool and is widely applied even in the engineering fields. Further to its stable and effective system structure, generalization of input training patterns into different classification or categorization in training can offer more systematic treatments of input part and more reliable result. Because neural network has an ability to learn the knowledge through the external information, it is not necessary to use logical programming and it can flexibly handle the incomplete information which is not easy to make a definition clear. Three dimensional stern hull forms and nominal wake values from a model test are structured as processing elements of input and output layer respectively and a neural network is trained by the back-propagation method. The inferred results show similar figures to the experimental wake distribution.

Keywords

• ship wake;
• statistical fluid dynamies;
• neural network;
• back-propagation method