18 May 2023 answer second round of reviewer comments.

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Reviewer 1
The updated and especially corrected version of the article is much better and the pictures are clearer. I
am still not satisfied with:
1. What numerical code is used, there is no word on this, did you develop it yourself?

There are no equations and special code development in this simulation.

2. You have given the RANS equations, please describe in few words the meaning of these equations!

The function of the equation above in equation (1) explains about the conservation of mass in the flow it
states that and to ensure that the mass is converted within the flow. Equations (2) – (4) represent the
conservation of momentum for three orthogonal directions in the flow. Each of these describes the
acceleration mean velocity components in the respective directions. And on the left-hand side represents
the rate of change of momentum with time. Equation (5) scalar equation represents the conservation of
scalar quantity in the flow that properties such as temperature, concentration, and other scalar fields of
interest. (to answer reviewer 1 in (1) and (2) questions.

3. What about the limitations of RANS models due to the modelling assumptions?

Limitations of RANS models are time-averaged and assume that the flow remains statistically steady.
However, many practical applications involve unsteady flows, such as flows with fluctuating velocities,
periodic variations, or transient phenomena. RANS models may not accurately capture unsteady behavior
and may require additional methods, like time-dependent simulations or coupling with other modeling
techniques. In other words, RANS models are widely used in engineering and scientific applications due
to their computational efficiency and reasonable accuracy for many practical scenarios.

Numerical
MRR comments: If Ketut and Rizky can give me sufficient information about this I can incorporate it into
the paper.

4. In figure 9 the angle of attack of the flow into the propeller is not shown!
MRR comment: I would have thought that this is obvious, but I can try to add something onto
the figure.

Reviewer 2
However, after going through this paper, I’m afarid the authors are not making quite much revisions based
on comments. Therefore, I refused to review this paper, the first review report is my final report. 

Reviewer 2’s initial comments:

This paper presents a CFD Analysis of Biofouling Effect on Submarine Resistance and Wake
distributions. However to the reviewers' best knowledge, this study just investigate the single-phase flow
fields around the submarine. The RANS numerical method has been widely adopted in the past two
decades, lacking the innovations. Also, two many numerical details, such as numerical schemes for the
discritizations of each term, the introduction of k and epsilon equations in the turbulence model, the
justification of the computational grids (only drag forces are considered in the grid independence study,
how did you convince the readers of the flow fields accuracies?) and the numerical solutions are
overlooked, thus it has deepened my concerns about the accuracies of this study. Secondly, the formats
and styles of all figures and tables are far from satisfactory, the screenshots with the low-resolution
quality, e.g. Fig.3, can never be accepted as a journal-quality paper. In the Material and methods part, the
data processing section should be added to include the definitions of the hydrodynamic coefficients (Ct
and Dc). Besides, the reviewer is quite interested in wake analysis, as the authors elaborate this
NUMERICAL study, however the wake is only illustrated through pure mean velocity contours in Fig. 8,
not mention the low-resolution illustrations. The discussions are too weak to support the results, so it must
be improved further.

Our reply to reviewer 2’s initial comments:

Single phase flow fields: We’re not exactly sure what the reviewer means by saying that the study just
investigates the single-phase flow fields around the submarine. Yes, that is the case – the submarine is
deeply submerged, so the flow is only single phase. There is no free surface.
Additional details of the CFD: We agree that the CFD used is not particularly novel in itself. It is the results
which are novel. That’s why we didn’t use up a lot of the paper describing the CFD approach. We have
now added some more information in response to the reviewers’ comments.
MRR comment: It is clear that all the reviewers require a lot more information about the CFD. Whilst I
don’t necessarily agree that this will be useful, it is clear that we are not going to have this paper accepted
unless we provide a lot more information about this. If Ketut and Rizky can provide this I can incorporate
it into the paper.

Figure quality: We apologise for the poor quality of the figures, and have improved them in the revised
version.
Definitions of Ct and DC.  We are not sure here what the reviewer is looking for. Ct  is defined in equation
6 and DC is defined in equation 7.
Figure 8: We agree that it is difficult to make a judgement as to the quality of the wake from figure 8. We
have improved this figure which we believe makes it easier to interpret. See our response to reviewer 1,
who also made similar comments. We think that it is a lot easier to interpret this figure now.
However, the point that we are trying to make is that it is the unsteadiness of the flow in the
circumferential sense that will influence the noise generated by the propeller. This can be assessed using
the Distortion Coefficient, which is plotted as a function of the radius in figure 10 for the six cases. We
believe that it is this figure which is important to justify the conclusions regarding the wake made in the
paper.

Reviewer 3
I have read again this work and sometimes it is confusing with double figures… I do not know if the author
left the previous manuscript images. In any case, I am not happy with this work and with some responses.
MRR comment: I’m not sure what he means by “double figures”. Also, he says that he is not happy with
the work, but does not really say why.

Equations descriptions. It does not matter if your goal is studding the biofouling. You MUST explain well
the numerical equations and numerical procedure well. Not only because the reader must be able to
reproduce it using the same equations independently of the code bu also because it was used as a part of
the research. It is the same if you work on an experimental campaign but you do not give those details.
They must be explained better and in detail. For instance, are you simulating a incompressible flow? So
then the equations must to reflect it. What is K epsilon and why used? Why not K omega SST? What is
the meaning of each parameter? …
MRR comment: Again, this is a complaint about lack of details of the CFD. He gives some specific
questions which need to be answered, as part of providing more details. But, I think that to keep all the
reviewers happy we will need to provide a lot more details of the CFD. If Ketut and Rizky can provide this
then I can incorporate it into the revised paper.

For the analysis, the shear stress transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model was chosen. This model exhibits
behavior like the standard k-ω model in the region close to the wall, but gradually transitions into the
standard k-ε model away from the wall through a blending function. This blending approach eliminates the
sensitivity issue of the standard k-ω model in the free stream while maintaining the near-wall performance
of the k-ω model. The SST model is well-suited for complex boundary layer flows that involve adverse
pressure gradients and separation.

To handle different boundary layer thicknesses in the flow fields (such as the hull of the submarine and its
appendages), the whole y+ formulation was employed, enabling automatic switching between low and
high Reynolds wall models. The numerical solver used for the simulations is based on the finite volume
method, which discretizes the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. In this approach, a
segregated model was utilized in the solver, and the convection terms were discretized using the second-
order upwind scheme to enhance solution accuracy.

Figure 3. That should not be part of a paper. The presentation is not rigorous is just a screen print.
MRR comment: we can certainly take this out, if that is what he wants.

Figure 4. Axes?
MRR comment: I think that he is looking for the body fixed axes to be added to the figure. Should be
easy to do? Can Rizky do this for us?

 
The mesh convergence is not clear. It is not including the ITTC procedures. Did you use? Explain how is
the boundary layers and what is the difference in cells. How is done the growth? More work on the mesh
explanation is needed.
MRR comment: Again, this is saying that we need to provide more details – can Ketut and/or Rizky do
this? I can then incorporate it into the paper.

The fluid flow that occurs around the free surface area behind the ship, obtained by applying a refinement
mesh around the hull shown in Figure 5, is an important treatment to display. No value and further
analysis, the outer surface of the domain mesh is distinguished from large to small to reduce the time of
computation. A triangular mesh is used over the entire area to reduce the number of computations in the
computational domain. The grid independence test was carried out at a speed of 9.14 in model 1, the
parameter used is the resistance (RT). There are 6 simulations from small to large element determination
in the range of 0 to 3,500,000 total elements. By determining the largest elements can be ignored when
the difference obtained is not more than 2%. From this test, the estimated number of elements that match
the simulation of this submarine is 1.9 million with the difference in the simulation results on Resistance.
 
Which did code you use?
MRR comment: Can you provide this, and perhaps a reference to the version number etc?

ITTC – Recommended Procedures and Guidelines, “Practical Guidelines for Ship CFD Applications,
2011.

If you are changing the Viscous Resistance. You must plot the analysis of the viscous forces separately
from pressure forces in order to see the difference.
MRR comment: Personally, I don’t agree that this is necessary, but it should be fairly easy for you to do.
If you can provide the values for the viscous resistance, and for the pressure resistance for each case
then I can write text around that.
 
Table 4. The study is based in the increment % but I wonder, is the same surface are in each case? No
so I see it obvious that the resistance would change if the viscous layer is changed. Now my question is,
for instance C4 and C5 has the same fouling surface? Why this resistance difference happens? Depends
on the position of the surface or on the area, or in both? A deeper study in this must be done.
MRR: we have a table of surface areas. They are not exactly identical, but fairly similar. I’m not sure if he
has seen the table, or not. I think that he is not aware of the other work in this field which demonstrates
the same thing. I had assumed that reviewers would be aware of this, so didn’t labour it in the first
version. But if it is what he wants then I can prepare some text explaining this.
 
The importance of the equations description is seen in figure 7. That field , turbulence kinetic energy,
depends on the set up. If you change that value those plot changed so I cannot evaluate this figure until
then. In addition, other plot should be presented.
MRR comment: I do not understand this comment from the reviewer. Do you?

Me too
 
I said in my previous review that this paper needs more work in the manuscript. It is quite difficult to
evaluate this work that only present few changes from first manuscript. Besides, I could expose much
more comments to this work but I think that the authors should take more time before re submitting this
paper.
MRR comment: I’m not really sure how to answer this comment. Perhaps I can add some text in to
discuss things a bit better. Have you any thoughts on it?

 
I do not consider that this paper should be published until a large revision is done.