AN EMPIRICAL-FORMULA TO ESTIMATE THE RESISTANCE OF A CONVOY IN A RESTRICTED WATERWAY

An examination of the literature produced very few references related to the subject of estimating the resistance of a convoy navigating in a waterway of limited cross section. This paper reports the findings o f one such study-a joint research project undertaken by Belgium's Univ ersity of Liege and the Bulgarian Ship Hydrodynamics Centre. A polynom ial is presented here for evaluating the total resistance of a convoy moving in a restricted waterway. The resistance was found to depend on Froude number and on the relative dimensions (length, width and depth ) between the convoy and the channel. The results obtained by the sugg ested polynomial are compared with those obtained by the other three e xisting empirical methods.