摘要：The free-running model ship test is one of effective measures to estimate ship performance and response in various situations.However, since Reynolds numbers are quite different between model and full-scale ships, phenomena of model ship especially those concerning propeller load are not necessarily similar to those of full-scale. The authors developed an auxiliary thruster to assist a free-running model ships’ propeller. The auxiliary thruster consists of a duct fan, a signal amplifier, a load cell, and a PC. The PC can control the longitudinal force of the duct fan arbitrarily using feed-back data of the force measured by the load cell and instantaneous model ship speed. A prototype confirms through verification test basic capabilities and adequacy of the authors' design of the auxiliary thruster.
