Abstract

Fast and accurate resistance prediction is critical in early-stage ship design. While Michell’s thin-ship theory provides rapid evaluations, its linear assumptions limit accuracy, particularly as hull forms deviate from ideal slenderness. This paper introduces a physics-preserving neural calibration method that improves Michell’s theory without replacing the underlying solver. We train a two-dimensional convolutional encoder–decoder, conditioned on Froude numbers via global FiLM modulation, to predict a bounded correction to the geometric effective-slope field. Because the solver remains unchanged, the learned correction acts as an interpretable spatial perturbation rather than a black-box resistance map. Evaluated under a strict leave-one-family-out (LOFO) protocol on a fleet of five slender hull families (DTMB, NPL-4A, Wide-Light Canoe, Wigley, and Delft 372), the neural calibration achieves a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.0741. This represents a 24% improvement over a reproduced 2020 baseline and a 7.9% improvement over the uncorrected Michell solver. The 2020 baseline is the rigid boundary-layer and phase-deflection correction of an earlier study by the present group, re-evaluated here on the present hulls at their measured attitudes. Ablation studies show that much of this aggregate gain is captured by a bounded global slope offset, indicating that a spatially uniform displacement correction accounts for most of the improvement on slender hulls, while the spatially varying field mainly adds per-family headroom. Finally, we map the physical boundaries of this approach. Dedicated recovery campaigns on fuller forms (KCS and Series 60) show that the model regresses compared to baselines. This confirms that while the correction successfully refines the linear source distribution for slender hulls, it cannot synthesize missing physics, such as stagnation pressure, separated flow, or wave interference, for fuller or unrelated geometries.

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