A Sensitivity Approach to Identification of Ship Dynamics From Sea Trial Data

Non-linear mathematical models of ships comprise one hundred parameters, or more, and differences between full-scale trials and model tests are difficult to associate with individual terms. Direct identification of parameters would be advantageous. The paper employs a sensitivity approach in an attempt to achieve this. Using the method on full-scale data from a containership, a good fit in roll and yaw is obtained, but the method reveals that this does not imply good determination of individual parameters. The sensitivity method is found to be easily applied for both identification and evaluation of the reliability of parameter estimates