THE WAVE RESISTANCE OF BODIES OF REVOLUTION

Following a brief review of prior work on wave resistance of bodies of revolution carried out by Havelock and Weinblum a discussion is presented of the approximate relations between the shape of sectional-area curves and of hydrodynamic irregularity distributions. The latter are expressed by polynomials, which lend themselves to an evaluation of the basic resistance integrals by computing intermediate integrals. Values of the functions thus obtained are tabulated in an appendix. These functions are then used to calculate the resistance of some simple bodies of revolution. Also investigated is how the resistance is influenced by asymmetry with respect to midship section. Distributions leading to bodies of least wave resistance are calculated, assuming rather severe restrictions. A rather complete set of resistance curves is given for an important family of bodies.