ENGINEERS HONORED BY MARINE SOCIETY FOR WAKE WASH INVESTIGATION
Published: November, 2000
The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), has honored four Seattle area engineers with the prestigious Vice Admiral Edward L. Cochrane Award for the outstanding technical paper of the past year. In its annual convention held in Vancouver British Columbia from 4-8 October, the Society recognized the work of Stanley Stumbo and Larry Elliott, both of Washington State Ferries, Kenneth Fox a naval architect from Bainbridge Island Washington, and Dr. Frank Dvorak of Analytical Methods Inc. in Renton, Washington for their combined work in the investigation of wake wash. A peer review of all technical papers presented to the Society, nation wide, in 1999, chose their paper, entitled The Prediction, Measurement, and Analysis of Wake Wash from Marine Vessels as the best paper presented to the society in 1999. The paper described the work which they have collectively performed to establish an "acceptable level " wash criteria, the prediction of wash using computational fluid dynamics, techniques used to measure and analyze wake wash, and the agreement achieved between predictions and measurements. Several of the vessels, which they analyzed in the paper, are ferries currently in service in the Bay area.
With the increase in high-speed ferry traffic world wide, wake wash has been recognized as an environmental problem and it is receiving increased attention from both coastal engineers and naval architects. The engineers honored by SNAME are continuing their investigations and will present further work at a meeting of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in London next month. Their current investigations concern the behavior of wash produced in shallow water, as compared to deep-water effects.
