An effective mesh deformation approach for hull shape design by optimization

A method for the morphing of surface/volume meshes suitable to be used in hydrodynamic shape optimization is proposed. Built in the OpenFOAM environment, it relies on a Laplace equation that propagates the modifications of the surface boundaries, realized by applying a free-form deformation to a subdivision surface description of the geometry, into the computational volume mesh initially built through a combination of BlockMesh with cfMesh. The feasibility and robustness of this mesh morphing technique, used as a computationally efficient pre-processing tool, is demonstrated in the case of the resistance minimization of the DTC hull. All the hull variations generated within a relatively large design space are efficiently and successfully realized, i.e., without mesh inconsistencies and quality issues, only by deforming the initial mesh of the reference geometry. Coupled with a surrogate model approach, a significant reduction in the calm water resistance, in the extent of 10%, has been achieved in a reasonable computational time.