UK-based naval designer BMT has released details of a new ‘pentamaran’ autonomous multi-mission platform.
The company says the vessels can be custom configured for military, patrol, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and hydrographic survey work.
As explained, the pentamaran has been designed to reduce drag as much as possible and tests have proven it offers improvements compared to conventional hull forms such as mono-hulls, catamarans and trimaran.
The vessel features a very slender central hull and two smaller hulls or ‘sponsons’ on either side. The sponsons are set one behind the other and when the vessel is operating on flat water, the forward sponsons are not submerged, as they provide roll stability effect in waves only. Compared to a trimaran there is less volume permanently immersed and therefore less resistance through the water.
“Our team have carried out extensive work on this. The data gathered through extensive towing tank testing is very compelling,” Martin Bissuel, business sector lead for specialized ship design at BMT said.
“For applications where fuel economy matters, the pentamaran hull form is more efficient than conventional full forms, which means that using the same engines and the same amount of fuel, it will go further than any other, making it an ideal candidate for autonomous applications.”
“The arrangement and careful positioning of the four sponsons makes all the difference. The forward sponsons stay above the water, and only come into action when the vessel rolls, so not only the drag is reduced, but the sea keeping characteristics are improved,” Bissuel added.
